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TENT^y SON'S POEMS. 



TENNYSON 'S 

POETICAL 

^^ORKS 



COMPLETE EDITION. 



N E W - Y O R K : 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS. 

416 BROOME STREET. 



PR SSSo 



Transfer 

Engineer School LibsC 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

To the Queen vii 

Claribel 1 

Lilian 1 

Isabel 1 

Mariana 2 

To — 3 

Madaline 3 

Song. — The Owl 3 

Second Song 4 

Recollection of the Arabian Nights . 4 

Ode to Memory 5 

Song 7 

Adeline 7 

A Character 8 

The Poet 8 

The Poet's Mind 9 

The Sea-fairies 9 

The Deserted House 9 

The Dying Swan 10 

A Dirge 10 

Love and Death 11 

The Ballad of Oriana 11 

Circumstance 12 

The Merman 12 

The Mermaid 12 

Sonnet to J. M. K 13 

The Lady of Shalott 13 

Mariana in the South 15 

Eleanore .16 

The Miller's Daughter 17 

Fatima 20 

Oilnoue . 20 

The Sisters 23 

To — 24 

The Palace of Art 24 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere ... 27 

The May Queen 28 

New-year's Eve 29 

Conclusion 30 

The Lotos-Eaters 31 

Choric song 32 



Page. 

A Dream ot I'air Women .... 33 

Margaret 37 

The Blackbird 38 

The Death of the Old Year ... 38 

To J. S 39 

Song: „You ask me, why tho' ill at 

ease." 39 

„ „0f old sat freedom on the 

heights 40 

„ „Love thou thy land, with 

love far-brought" . . . 40 
The Goose ........ .41 

The Epic 41 

Morte d' Arthur 42 

The Gardener's Daughter or the 

Pictures 46 

Dora 49 

Audley Court 51 

Walking to the Mail 52 

Edwin Morris; or the Lake ... 53 

St. Simeon Stylites 55 

The Talking Oak 58 

Love and Duty 61 

The Golden Year 62 

Ulysses 63 

Locksley Hall 64 

Godiva .66 

The two Voices 67 

The Daydream: — 

Prologue 74 

The Sleeping Palace ... .74 

The Sleeping Beauty 75 

The Arrival 75 

The Revival 75 

The Departure 75 

Moral 76 

L'envoi 76 

Epilogue 77 

Amphion 77' 

St. Agnes' Eve 78 

Sir Galahad 78 



CON T E N T S. 



Pclge 

Edward Gray 79 

Will Waterproofs Lyrical Mono- 
logue 79 

To — , after reading a Life and Let- 
ters 83 

To E. L., on his travels in Greece. 83 

Lady Clare 83 

The Lord of Burleigh 83 

SirLauncelot and Queen Guinevere. 84 

A Farewell 85 

The Beggar Maid 35 

The Vision of Sin 85 

Song: „Come not when I am dead," 87 

The Eagle 88 

Song : „Move eastward, happy earth, 

and leave" \ 88 

Song: „Break-, break, break,". . 88 

The Poet's Song 88 

Maud 88 

Part I 88 

Part II 100 

Part III 104 

The Brook ; an Idyl 105 

Tbe Letters 108 

Ode on the Death of the Uuke of 

Wellington 108 

The Daisy Ill 

To the Rev. V. I). Maurice . . 113 

Will ; 113 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 113 

In Memoriara 114 

The Princess; A. Medley . . . 114 

Enoch Arden 185 

Ayloier's Field 196 

Sea Dreams 206 

The Grandmother 310 

Xortliern Farmer. Old style . . 213 

Tithonus 214 

The Voyage 215 

In the Valley of Cauteretz ... 216 

The Flower 217 



Page 

Requiescat 217 

The Sailor Boy 217 

The Islet 217 

The Ringlet ....... .218 

A Welcome to xilexandra . . . 218 
A Dedication ...... .219 

Expriments 

Boadicea 219 

In Quantity 321 

Specimen of a translation of the 

Iliad in blank verse .... 221 

1865—1866 221 

The Old Seat 221 

The Victim 222 

Lucretius 223 

Song: „My life is full of weary 

days," 226 

The Captain 226 

Three Sonnets to a Coquette . . 327 

Song : „Lady, let the rolling drums". 228 
Song : „Home they brought him slain 

with spears." 228 

On a Mourner ... ... 228 

Northern Farmer. New style . . 228 

The Golden Supper 230 

Wages 235 

The Higher Pantheism ... .235 

Song: „Flower in the crannied wall" 235 

Literary Squabbles 235 

Idylls of the King. 

Dedication 236 

The Eoming of Arthur. ... 236 

Gareth and Lynette ... . 241 

Geraint and Enid 260 

Merlin and Vivien 282 

Lancelot and Elaine .... 292 

The Holy Grail 310 

Pelleas and Ettarre 323 

The Last Tournament . . . S30 

Guinevere 345 

The Passing of Arthur . . ' 359 



TO THE QUEEN. 



y 



Revered, beloved — O you that hold 

A nobler office upon earth 
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth 
Conld give the warrior kinsrs of old, 

Victoria, — since your Royal grace 
To one of less desert allows 
This laurel greener from the brows 

Of him that utter'd nothing base; 

A.nd should your greatness, and the care 
That yokes with empire , yield you time 
To make demand of modern rhyme 

If au?ht of ancient worth be there; 

Then — while a sweeter music wakes, 
And thro' Mild March the throstle calls, 
Where all about your palace-walls 

The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes — 



T O T Tf E Q i: E F N. 

Take, Madam, this poor l)ook of song; 
For tho' the faults were thick as dust 
In vacant chambers , I could trust 

Your kindness. May you rule us long, 

And leave us rulers of your blood 

As noble till the latest day! 

May children of our children say, 
'She wi-ought her people lasting good, 

'Her court was pure; her life serene; 

God gave her peace; lier land reposed; 

A thousand claims to reverence closed 
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen; 

'And statesmen at her council met 
Who knew the seasons when to take 
Occasion by the hand, and make 

The bounds of freedom wider yet 

'By shaping some august decree, 
Which kept her throne unshaken still, 
Broad-based upon her people's will; 

And compass'd by the inviolate soa.' 



P O E M S. 



CLAKIBEL. 

A MELODY. 

r. 
Whf.et, Claribel low-lieth 

The breezes paiise aud die, 
Letting the rose-leaves fall -. 
But tlie solemn oak-tree siglieth, 
Thick-leaved, anihrosial, 

With an ancient nielody 

Ofan inward agony, 
Where Claribel low-lieth. 

II. 
At eve the beetle hoometh 

Athwart the thicket lone : 
At noon the wild bee hnmmeth 

About the moss'd headstone : 
At midnight the moon cometh. 

And looketh down alone. 
Her song the lintwhite swelleth, 
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, 

The callow throstle lispeth, 
The slumbrous wave outwelleth, 

The babbling runnel crispeth. 
The hollow grot replieth 
Where Claribel low lieth. 



LILIAX. 

I. 

AiEY, fairy Lilian, 

Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
When I ask her if*she love me. 
Claps lier tiny hands above me^ 

Laughing all she can ; 
She'll not tell me if she love me, 

Cruel little Lilian. 
II. 

When my passion seeks 

Pleasance in love-sighs, 
She, looking thro' and thro' me 
Thoroughly to undo me, 

Smiling, never speaks -. 
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, 
From beneath her gather'd wimple 



Glancing with black-beaded eyes, 
Till the lightning laughters dimple 
The baby-roses in her cheeks ; 
Tb.en away she flies. 

IIT. 

Prythee weep, May Lilian ' 
Gaiety witbout'eclipse 

Wearieth me, ^lay Lilian : 
Thro' my very heart it thrilletli 

When from' crimson-threaded lips 
Silver-treble laughter trilletli : 

Prythee weep, May Lilian. 

IV. 

Praying all I can, 
If prayers will not hush thee, 

Ah-y Lilian, 
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, 

Fairv Lilian. 



ISABEL. 

T. 

Eyes not down-dropt norover bright,but fed 
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, 
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by 
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent 
(fane 
Of her still spirit ; locks not widc-dispread. 
A[adonna-wise on either side her head ; 
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign 
The summer calm of golden charity, 
Were fixed shadows of thy fi>:ed mood. 

Revered Isabel, the crown and head, 
The stately flower of female fortitude. 
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead. 
II, 
The intuitive decision of a bright. 
And thorough-edged intellect to part 
Error fromcrime-a prudence to withhold •. 
The laws of marriage character'din gold 
Upon the blanched fablets of her heart;. 
A love still burning upward, giving light 
To read those laws ; an accent very low- 
In blandishment, but a most silver flow 
Of subtle-paced coniisp] in distress, 
1 



MAUIANA, 



Right to the heart ;ind brain, tho' undes- 
(,cried, 
Winning its way with extreme gen- 
(tleness 
Thro' all the out works of suspicious xn'ide: 
A courage to endure and to obey ; 
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, 
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life. 
The queen of marriage,a most perfect wife. 
III. 
The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon ; 
A clear stream flowing with a miiddy one, 
T'ill in its onward current it absorbs 
^Vith swifter movement and in purer 
(light 
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother : 
A leaning and upbearing parasite, 
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen 
(quite, 
With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial 
(orbs 
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each 

(other — 
Shadow forth th ee-.— the world hath not 
(another 
(Tho' all her fairest forms are types of thee, 
And thou of God in thy great charity) 
Of such a flnish'd chasten'd purity. 

MARIANA. 

,, Mariana in the moated grange.'^ — Measure 

for Measure. 
With blackest moss the flower-plots 
Were thickly crusted, one and all : 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 

Tiiat held the pear to the gable-wall. 
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : 
Unlifted was the clinking latch; 
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, ,,My life is dreary, 

He cometh not,'- she said ; 
She said, „I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" " 
ller tears fell with the dews at even ; 

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; 
Slie could not look on the sweet heaven. 

Either at morn or eventide. 
After the flitting of the bats. 

When thickest dark did trance the sky, 
She drew her casement-curtain by, 
And t^lanced atbwart tlie glooming flats. 
She only said, ,/The night is dreary, 



He cometh not," she said ; 
She said, „I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead '.'" 
Upon the middle of the night. 

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow : 
The cock sung out an hour^ere lisfht : 
From the dark fen the oxen's Ioay 
Came to her: without hope of change, 
In sleep she seem'd to w^alk forlorn, 
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
About the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, ,/The day is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said ; 

She said, „I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead ! '• 

About a stone-cast from the wall 

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, 
And o'er it many, round and small. 

The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. 

Hard by a poplar shook alway. 

All silver-green with gnarled bark : 

For leagues no other tree did mark 

The level waste, the rounding gray. 

She only said, ,/Mylife is dreary. 

He cometh not,'' she said; 
She said, ,,I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 
And ever when the moon was low, 

And the shrill winds were up and away, 
In the white curtain, to and fro, 

She saw the gusty shadow sway. 
But when the moon was very low% 
And wild winds bound within their cell. 
The shadow of the poplar fell 
Upon her bed, across her brow. 

She only said, „The night is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said -. 
She said, ,/I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 
All day within the dreamy house, 

The doors upon their hinges creak'd; 
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse 

Behind the mouldering wainscot shrick'd. 
Or from the crevice peer'd about. 
Old faces glimmcr'd thro' the doors, 
Old footsteps trod the upper floors, 
Old voices called her from without. 
She only said, „My iifeisdi-eary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, „I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead 1" 
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, 



SoyG. — THE OWL. 



The slow clock tickiu^^ and the sound 
^Vhich to the wooinp: wind aloof 

The poplar made, did all confound 

Ker seusei but most she loathed the hour 

When the thick-moted sunbeam lay 

Athwart the chambers, and the day 

Was sloping toward his western bower. 

Then, said she, .J am very dreary, 

He will not come,'' she said; 
She wept, ,,I am aweary, aweary, 
God, that I were dead !'' 

TO—. 

I. 
CLEAR-HEADtD fricud, whose joyful scorn. 

Edged Avith sharp laugliter, cuts atwain 

The knots that tangle human creeds. 
The wounding cords that bind and strain 

The heart until it bleeds, 
Ilay-fringed eyelids of the morn 

Roof not a glance so keen as thine : 

If aught of prophecy be mine, 
Thou wilt not live in vain. 

II. 
Low-coAvering shall the Sophist sit: 

Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow : 

Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not noAv 
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. 
]N'or?martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords 

Can do away that ancient lie ; 

A gentler death shall Falsehood die, 
Shot thro' and thro' Avith cunning words. 

III. 
Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, 

Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, 

Thy kingly intellect shall feed. 

Until she be an athlete bold. 

And Aveary with a finger's touch 

Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; 
- Like that strange angel which of old, 

Until the breaking of the light, 
Wrestled with Avandering Israel, 

Past Yabbok brook thelivelong niglit, 
And heaven's mazed signs stood still 
In the dim tract of Penuel. 

MADELI^■E. 
I. 
Thou art not steep'd in golden languors, 
]S'o tranced summer calm is thine, 

Ever varying Madeline. 
Thro' light and shadow thou dost range. 
Sudden glances, sweet and strange, 



/ Delicious spites and darling augers, 
! And airy forms of flitting change. 
I II. 

' Smiling, froAA'ning, evermore, 
Thou art perfect in love-lore. 
Revealings deep and clear are tliine 
1 Of wealthy smiles: but Avho may know 
: Whether smile or frown be fleeter r 
: AVhether smile or froAvn be sweeter, 
i Who may knoAV r 

I Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow 
Light-glooming over eyes divine. 
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine. 
Ever varying Madeline. 
Thy smile and frown are not aloof 
From one another. 
Each to each is dearest brother; 
Hues of the silken sheeny Avoof 
Momently shot into each other. 
All the* mystery is thine ; 
Smiling, frowning, evermore, 
Thou art perfect in love-lore, 
Ever varying Madeline, 
in. 
A subtle, sudden-flame, 
By veering passion fann'd, 

About thee breaks and dances ; 
When I Avould kiss thy hand. 
The flush of anger'd shame 
I O'erfloAvsthy calmer glances, 

I And o'er black broAvs drops duAvu 
I A sudden- curved froAvn : 
' But when I turn aAvay, 
; Thou, willing me to stay, 
I Wooest not, nor vainly Avranglest ; 
But, looking fixedly the Avhile, 
All my bounding heart entanglest 
In a golden-netted smile; 
Then in madness and in bliss, 
If my lips should dare to kiss 
Thy taper fingers amorously, 
Again thou blushest angerly ; 
And o'er black brows drops droAvn 
A sudden-curved froAvn. 

S ^' O. — T H E W L. 

I. 
Whe.x cats run home and light is come, 
And dew is cold upon the'ground, 

! And the far-oif stream is dumb, 
j And the AA'hirring sail goes round, 
And the whirring sail goes round : 
I Alone and warming his five wits, 

1 The white owl in the belfry sits. 



IfECOLLECTIOXS OF THE ARAB UN NIGHTS, 



"When merry milkmaids click tlielatcli, 
And rarely smtlls the new-mown hay, 
And the cock liath sun^^ beneath the thatch 
Twice or thrice his roundelay, 
Twice or tlirice his roundelay; 
Alone and warming his tive Avits, 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 

SECOND SONG. 

TO THE SAME. 
I. 

Thy tuwhits are lull'd, I wot, 
Tby tuwhoos of yesternight, 
"Which upon tlie dark afloat. 
So took echo with delight, 
So took echo with delight. 
That her voice untuneful grown, 
"Wears all day a fainter tone. 
II, 
1 would mock tliy chamit anew ; 

But I cannot niimick it ; 
Not a wMt of thy tuwhoo, 
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit. 
Thee to woo to thy tuwMt, 
With a lengtlien'd loud halloo, 
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhioo-o-o. 

HECOLLECTIONS OE 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 
AVhen the breeze of a joyful dawn blew* free 
111 the silken sail of infancy , 
The tide of time flow'd back wdth mc , 

The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold. 
High-walled gardens green and old ; 
True Mussulman w as I and sworn, 

Eor it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 
The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove 
The citron-shadows in the blue; 
By garden porches on the brim, 
The costly doors flung open wide. 
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, 
And broider'd sofas on each side: 

In sooth it was a goodly time. 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
Often, where clear-stemni'd platans guard 



The outlet, did I turn away 

The boat-head down a broad canal 

I'rom the main river sluiced, where all 

The sloping of the moon-lit sAvard 

Was damask-work, and deep inlay 

Of braided blooms unmown, which crept 

Adown to where the water slept. 

A goodly place, a goodly time. 

Eor is was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

A motion from the river won 
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on 
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, 
Until another night in night 
I enter'd, from the clearer light, 
Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm. 
Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clonib 
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome 
Of hollow boughs. — A goodly time, 
Eor it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Still onw ard ; and the clear canal 
Is rounded to as clear a lake. 
From the green rivage many a fall 
Of diamond rillets musical, 
Thro' little crystal arches low 
Dow^n from the central fountain's tluw 
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake 
The sparkling flints beneath the prow. 
A goodly place, a goodly time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Above thro' many a bowery turn 
A walk with vary-coloui-^d shells 
Wander'd engrain'd. On either side 
All round about the fragrant marge 
From fluted vase, and brazen urn 
In order, eastern flowers large. 
Some dropping low their crimson bells 
Half-closed, and others studded wide 

With disks and tiars, fed the time. 

With odour in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Far off, and where the lemon grove 
In closest coverture upsprung, 
The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bulbul as he sung ; 
Not he : but something wiiich posscss'd 
The darkness of the world, delight, 
Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, 
Apart from place, withholding time. 



ODE TO MEMORY. 



jjut flattering tlie goldeu ])rimc 
Of good Haroim Alrviscliid. 
Black the garden-bowers and grots 
Slumber'd : the solemn palms were ranged 
Above, unwoo'd of summer wind: 
A sudden splendour from behind 
Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green. 
And, flowing rapidly between 
Their interspaces, counterchanged 
The level lake with diamond plots 
Of dark and bright. A lovely time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good liaroun Alraschid. 
Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, 
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, 
Grew darker from that under-llame : 
So, leaping lightly from the boat, 
AVith silver anchor left afloat. 
In marvel whence that glory came 
Upon me, as in sleep I sank 
In cool soft turf upon the bank. 
Entranced Avith that place and time, 
So worthy of the golden prime 
Of goodHaroun xilraschid. 
Thence thro' the garden I was drawn — 
A realm of pleasance, many a mound, 
xind many a shadow— chequer'd lawn 
Full of the city's stilly sound, 
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round 
The stately cedar, tamarisks, 
Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 
Graven with emblems of the time, 
In honour of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
\Vitli dazed vision unawares 
From the long alley's latticed shade 
Emerged, I came upon the great 
Pavilion of the Caliphat. 
llight to the carven cedarn doors. 
Flung inward over spangled floors, 
Broad-based flights of marble stairs 
llan up with golden balustrade. 
After the fashion of the time, 
x\nd humour of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

The fourscore windows all alight 
As with the quintessence of flame, 
k million tapers flaring bright 
From twisted silvers look'd to shame 
The hollow- vaulted dark, and streamed 
Upon the mooned domes aloof 



In inmost Bagdat, till tiierc br'eiu'd 
Hundreds of crescents on the roof 

Of night new-risen,tliat marvellous time 
To celebrate the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
Then stole I up, and trancedly 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone, 
Serene with argent-lidded eyes 
Amorous, and lashes like to rays 
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
Tressed with redolent ebony, 
In many a dark delicious curl, 
Flowing beneath her rose-nued zone ; 
The sweetest lady of the time, 
AYell Avorthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
Six columns, three on either side, 
Pure silver, underpropt a rich 
Throne of the massive ore, from which 
Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, 
Engarlanded and diaper'd 
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd 
AVitli merriment of kingly pride, 

Sole star of all that place and time, 
I saw him — in his golden prime, 
The good Haroun Alraschid I 

ODE TO MEMORY. 
I. 
Thou who stealest tire, 
From the fountains of the past. 
To glorify the present; oh, haste, 

Visit my low desire '. 
Strengthen me, enlighten me ! 
I faint in this obscurity, 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 
II. 
Come not as thou camest of late, 
Flinging the gloom of yesternight 
On the white day; but robed in softeu'd light 

Of orient state. 
Whilome thou camest with the morning 
(mist, 

Even as a maid, Avhose stately bruw 
The dew-impearled winds of dawn Lave 
(kiss'd, 

When she, as thou, 
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight 
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots 
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, 
Which in wintertide shall star 
The black earth with brilliance rare, 



OLE TO MEMORY. 



Wliilome thou earnest with the morning 

(mist, 
Aud with the evening cloud, 
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open 

(breast 
Thoee peerless flowers which in the rudest 

(wind 

Never grow sere, 
When rooted in the garden of the mind, 

Because they are the earliest of the year}. 

IsoY was tiie night thy shroud. 

In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest 

Thouleddest by the hand thine infant Hope. 

The eddying of her garments caught from 

(thee 
The light of thy great presence; and the cope 

Of the half-attaiu'd futurity, 

Tho' deep not fathomless, 
"Was cloven with the million stars which 

(tremble 
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. 
Small thought was there of life's distress ; 
For sure she deeni'd no mist of earth could 

(dull 
Tliose spirit-thrilling eyes so keen andbeau- 

(tiful : 
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres. 
Listening the lordly music flowing from 
The illimitable years. 

strengthen me, enlighten me! 

1 faint in this obscurity, 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 

IV. 

Come forth, I charge thee, arise. 

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! 

Thou comest noth with shows of flaunting 

(vines 
Unto mine inner eye. 
Uivinest Memory ! 

Thou wertuot nursed by the waterfall 
Which ever sounds and shines 

A pillar of white light upon the wall 
Of purple clift's, aloof descried : 
Come from the woods that belt the gray hill- 

(side, 
The seven elms, the polars four 
That stand beside my father's door, 
And chiefly from the brook that loves 
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, 
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, 
Drawin;,< into his narrow earthen urn. 

In every elbow aud turn. 
The tilter'd tribute of the rough woodland. 



! hither lead thy feet I 
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
Ofthe thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, 

Upon the ridged wolds. 
When the first matin-song hath waken'd 

(loud 
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, 
What time the amber morn 
Forth gushes from beneath a low -hung 

(cloud. 

V. 

Large dowries doth the raptured eye 

To the young spirit present 
When first she is wed; 

And like a bride of old 
In triumph led^ 
With music and sweet showero 
Of festal flowers, 

Unto the dwelling she must sway. 
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, 

In setting round thy first e.vperimeut 
AVith royal frame- work of wrought gold, 
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, 
And foremost in thy various gallery 

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls 

Upon the storied walls; 
For the discovery 
And newness of thine art so pleased thee, 
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest 

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs 
With thee unto the love thou bearest 
The fir?t-born of thy genius. Artist-like, 
Ever retiring thou dost gaze 
On the prime labour of thine early days : 
No matter what the sketch might be; 
Whether the high field on the bushless Pike. 
Or even a sand-built ridge 
Of heaped hills that mound the sea, 
Overblown with murmurs harsh, 
Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 
Stretch'd wide and wild the waste eiior- 

(mous marsh, 
Where from the frequent bridge. 
Like emblems of infinity. 
The trenched waters run from sky to sky • 
Or a garden bower'd close 
With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, 
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, 
Or opening upon level |)lots 
Of crowned lilies, standing near 
Purple-spiked lavender : 
Whither in after life retired 
From brawling storms. 
I'roni wearv wind, 



AtfElWE. 



"^ With youthful fancy reinspired, 
We may hold converse with all forms 
Of the many-sided mind, 
And those whom passion hath not blinded, 
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded. 
My friend, with you to live alone, 
Were how much better than to ow u 
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne ! 

strengthen me, enlighten me '. 

1 faint in this obscurity. 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 

SONG. 

T. 

A .Spirit haunts the year's last hours 
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: 

To himself he talks ; 
For at eventide, listening earnestly, 
At his w^ork you may hear him sob and sigh 
In the walks; 

Earthward hebow^eth the heavy stalks 
Of the mouldering flowers : 

Heavily hangs the broad sunHow^er 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly : 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. , 
II. 
The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, 
As a sick man's i oom when he taketh repose 

An hour before death ; 
My very heart faints and my whole soul 

(grieves 
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, 
And the breath 

Of the fading edges of box beneath. 
And the year's last rose. 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 

ADELINE. 

T. 

Mystery of mysteries, 
Faintly smiling Adeline, 
Scarce of earth nor all divine, 
Nor unhappy, nor at rest, 
But beyond expression fair 
With thy floating flaxen hair, 
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes 

Take the heart from out uiy breast. 
Wherefore those dim looks of thine, 
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline '.- 



Whence that aery bloom of thine. 

Like a lily which the sun 
Looks thro' in his sad decline, 
And a rose-bush leans upon, 
Thou that faintly smilest still, 
As a Naiad in a well, 
Looking at the set of day, 
Or a phantom two hours old 

Of a maiden past away, 
Ere the placid lips be cold ? 
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, 
Spiritual Adeline? 

III. 
What hope or fear or jov is thine 'r 
Who talketh with thee,' Adeline : 
For sure thou art not all alone : 

Do beating hearts of salient springs 
Keep measure with thine OAvn r 

Hast thou heard the butterflies 
What they say ])etwixt tlieir wines - 
Or in stillest evenings 
With what voice the violet wous 
To his heart the silver dew^sr 
Or when little airs arise, 
llow the merry bluebell rings 
To tne mosses underneatl;? 
Hast thou look'd upon the l)reath 
Of the lilies at sunrise? 
AVherefore that faint smile of thine, 
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? 

IV. 

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind, 
Some spirit of a crimson rose 
In love with thee forgets to close 
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs 
All night long on darkness blind. 
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou 
With thy soften'd, shadoAv'd brow. 
And those dew-lit eyes of thine, 
Thou faint smiler, Adeline? 

V. 

Lovest thou the doleful wind 

When thou gazest at the skies? 
Doth the low^-tongued Orient 
Wander from the side of the morn, 
Dripping with Sabfean spice 
On thy pillow, lowly bent 

With melodious airs lovelorn, 
Breathing Light against thy face, 
Wliile his locks a-droopiug twined 
Hound thy neck in subtle ring 
Make :i eare;inet of rays, 

And ye talk together still. 



THE vom\ 



In the language wherewith Spring 
Letters cowslips on the hill ': 
Hence that look and smile of thine, 
Spiritnal Adeline. 

A CHARACTER. 
With a half-glance upon the sky 
At night he said, ,/The wanderings 
Of this most intricate Universe 
Teach me the nothingness of things.'' 
Yet conld not all creation pierce 
Beyond the bottom of his eye. 
He spake of heanty : that the dnll 
Saw no divinity in grass, 
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air ; 
Then looking as 'twere in a glass, 
He smooth'd his chin and sleek'dhis hair, 
And said the earth was beantiful. 
He spake of virtue -. not the gods 
More purely, when they wish to charm 
Pallas and Juno sitting by : 
And with a sweeping ol"the arm, 
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, 
Devolved his rounded periods. 
Most delicately hour by hour 
He canvass'd human mysteries, 
And trod on silk, as if the winds 
Blew his own praises in his eyes. 
And stood aloof from other minds 
In impotence of fancied power. 
With lips depress'd as he were meek, 
Himself unto himself he sold : 
Upon himself himself did feed : 
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold. 
And other than his form of creed, 
With chisell'd features clear and sleek. 

THE POET. 

The poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above ; 
Hower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of 
'SCorn, 

The love of love. 
He saw thro' life and death; thro' irood 
(and ill, 
He saw thro' his own soul. 
The marvel of the everlasting will. 

An open scroll, 
Before him lay: with echoing feet he tlireaded 

Tlie secretest walks of fame : 
The \iewle3s arrows of liis thuughts were 
fheuded 



And wing'd witli fl.ame, 
Like Indian reeds blown from bis .silver 
(tongue, 
And of so fierce a flight, 
From Calpe unto Caucasus thev suna:, 

Tilling with light 
And vagrant melodies' the winds which bort 

Them earthward till they lit ; 
Then, like the arrows-seeds ofthe field flower. 

Then fruitful w it 
Cleaving,took root, and springing forth anew 

Where'er they fell, behold, 
Like to the mother plant in scmblance.grew 

A flower all gold. 
And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling 

The win 2:ed shafts of truth, 
To throng with stately blooms the breath- 
(ing spring 

" Of Hope and Youth. 
So many minds did gird their orbs with 
(beams, 
Tho' one did fling the fire. 
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams 

Of high desire. 
Thus truth w^as multiplied on truth, the 
(world 
Like one great garden show'd. 
And thro' theVreaths .of floating dark up- 
(cmi'd, 

Rare sunrise flow'd. 
And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise 

Her beautiful bold brow. 
When rites and forms before his burning eyes 

Melted like snow. 
There was no blood upon her maiden robes 

Sunn'd by those orient skies-. 
But round about the circles of the globes 

Of her keen eyes. 
Andin her raiment's hem was traced in flame 

WiSDo:n, a name to shake 
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name. 

And when she spake, 
Her words did gather thunder as they ran. 

And as the lightning to the thunder 
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man. 

Making earth wonder, 
Sowas their meaningto her words. Xo sword 

Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, 
But one poor poet's scroll, and with ///.* wonl 
She shook the world. 



THE TJESEli TED HO USE. 



9 



THE I'OETS MIND. 

Vex not thou the poet's mind 

With thy shallow wit : 
Vex not thou tlie poet's mind; 
For thou canst not fathom it. 
Clear and bright it should be ever, 
llowing like a crystal river ; 
Bright as light, and clear as wind. 

II. 
Dark-broAv'd sophist, come not anear, 

AU the place is holy ground ; 
Hollow smile and frozen sneer 
Come not here. 
Holy water will 1 pour 
Into every spicy liower 
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. 
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer. 
In your eye there is death. 
There is frost in your breath 
Wliicli would blight the plants. 
Where you stand you cannot hear 
From the groves within 
The wild-bird's din. 
In the heart of the garden the merry bird 

(chants, 
It would fall to the ground if you came in. 
In the middle leaps a fountain 
Like sheet lightning. 
Ever brightening 
With a low melodious thunder : 
All day and all night it is ever drawn 
From the brain of the purple mountain 
Which stands in the distance yonder : 
It springs on a level of bowery lawn, 
And the mountain draws it from Heaven 

(above, 
Audit sings a song of undying love; 
And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full, 
\ou never would hear it: vour ears are so 

(dull; 
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin; 
It would shrink to theearth if you came iu. 

THE SEA-FAIllIES. 
Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw, 
Betwixt the green brink and the running 

(foam, 
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest 
To little harps of gold; and while they 

(mused. 
Whispering to each other half in fear, 
Shrill music reach'd tjiem on the middle sea. 



Whither away, whither away, whither 

(away? fly no more. 
Whither away troni the high green held, 

(and the happy blossoming shore: 
Day and night to the billow the fountain 

(calls: 
Down shower the gambolling Avaterfalls 
From wandering over the lea : 
Out of the live-green heart of the dells 
They freshen the silvery-crimson shells. 
And thick with white bells the clover-hill 

(swells 
High over tlie full-toned sea : 
hither, come hither and furl your sails, 
Come hither to me and to me : " 
Hither, come hither and frolic and play : 
Here it is only the mew that wails ; 
We will sing to you all the day : 
^Mariner, mariner, furl your sails. 
For here are the blissful downs and dales, 
And merrily, merrily carol the gales, 
And the spangle dances in bight and bay. 
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land. 
Over the islands free; 
And the rainbow lives in the curve of the 

(sand ; 
Hither, come hither and see ; 
And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave. 
And sv\-eet is the colour of cove and cave, 
And sweet shall your welcome be: 
hither, come hither, and be our lords, 
For merry brides are we: 
We VY'ill kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet 

1 words: 
listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
With pleasure and love and jubilee : 
listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
When the sharp clear twang of the gulden 

(chords 
Runs up tlie ridged sea. 
Who can light on as happy a shore 
All the world o'er, all thc'wurld o'er : 
Whither away: listen and stay: manner, 

(mariner, fly no more. 

T H E D E S E U T E D HOUSE. 
I. 
Liii; and Thought have gone away 
Side by side, 

Leaving door and windows wide: 
Careless tenants they 1 
ii. 
All within is dark as night ; 
In the windows is no lights 



10 J DIRGE. 

Aurt no inurinur at tlie door, 
80 frequent on its liinge before. 



Close the door, the sliutters close. 
Or thro' the windows we shall see 
The nakedness and vacancy 

Of the dark deserted liouse. 

IV. 

Come away : no more of mirth 

Is here or merry-making sound. 

The house was builded of the earth, 
And shall fall again to ground. 

V. 

Come away : for Life and Thouglit 
Here no'^longer dwell ; 
But in a city glorious — 
A great and dist"cint city — liave bought 
A mansion incorruptible. 
"Would they could have stayed with us '. 

THE DYIIS^G SWA^. 
I. 

The plain was grassy, wild and bare, 

Wide, wild, and open to the air, 

Which had built up everywhere 
An under-roof of doleful gray. 

AVith an inner voice the river ran, 

Adown it floated a dying swan. 

And loudly did lament. 

It was the middle of the day. 

Ever the weary wind went on. 

And took the reed-tops as it went. 
II. 

Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 

And white against the cold-white sky. 

Shone out their crowning snoAvs, 
One willoAV over tlie river wept, 

And shook the wave as the wind did sigh ; 

Above in the wind was the swallow, 
Chasingitself at its own wild will^ 
And far thro' the marish. green and still 
The tangled aa ater-courses slept, 

Shotover with purple, and green,and yellow. 
III. 

Tli-e wild swan's death-hymn took the soul 

Of tiiat waste place with joy 

Hidden in sorrow : at lirst to the ear 

The Yifarble was low, and full and clear ; 

And floating about the under-sky, 

Prevailing in weakness: the coronach stole 

Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear ; 

But anon her awful jubilant voice, 

AVith a juusic strange and manifold, 

>low'd foJ'th on a ^arol free and bold.; 



As when a mighty people rejoice 

With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps 

(of gold, 

And the tumult of their acclaim is roH'd 
Thro' the open gates of the city afar, 
To the shepherd who watcheth the evening 

(star. 
And the creeping mosses and clambering 

(weeds, 
And the willow-branches hoar and dank, 
And the Avavy swell of the soughing reeds, 
And the wave-AVorn horns of the echoing 

(bank. 
And the silvery marish-tlowers that throng 
The desolate creeks and pools among. 
Were flooded over with eddying song. 

A DIHGE. 
I. 
]S'oAV is done thy long day's work ; 
Eold thy palms across thy breast. 
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. 

Let them rave. 
ShadoAVs of the silver birk 
SAveep the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 
II. 
Thee nor carketh care nor slander ; 
Nothing but the small cold worm 
Fretteth thine enshrouded form. 

Let them rave. 
Light and shadoAv ever Avauder 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 
III. 
Thou Avilt not turn upon thy bed ; 
Chaunteth not the brooding bee 
Sweeter tones than calumny 'r 

Let them rave. 
Thou Avilt never raise thine he;id 
From the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

IV. 

Crocodiles wept tears for thee ; 

The Avoodbine and eglatere 

Drip SAveeter dcAvs than traitor's tear. 

Let them rave. 
Rain makes music in the tree 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

V. 

Hound thee bloAV, self-pleached deep. 
Bramble roses^ faint and pale^ 



THE BALLAD OF QUI AN A. 



And long purples of the dale. 

Let them rave. 
These in every shower creep 
Thro' the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

VI. 

The gold-eyed kingcups fine ; 
The frail bluebell peereth over 
Rare broidry of the purple clover. 

Let them rave. 
Kings have no such couch as thine, 
As the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

VIT. 

Wild words wander here and there: 
God's great gift of speech abused 
Makes thy memory confiised: 

But let them rave. 
The balm-cricket carols clear 
In the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

LOVE AND DEATH. 
What time the mighty moon was gathering 

(light 
Love paced the thyray plots of Paradise, 
i\.nd all about him ro'U'd his lustrous eyes ; 
When, turning round a cassia, full in view 
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, 
And talking to himself, first met his sight : 
„You must begone," said Death, „these 

(walks are mine." 
Love wept aud spread his sheeny vans for 

(flight; 
Yet ere he parted said, „This hour is thine : 
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree 
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, 
So in the light of great eternity 
Life eminent creates the shade of death ; 
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall , 
But I shall reign for ever over all." 

THE BALLAD OF OBI AN A. 
My heart is wasted with my woe, 

Oriana. 
There is no rest for me below, 

Oriana. 
When the long dun wolds are ri1)l)'d with 

(snow. 
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, 

Oriana, 
Alone I wander to and fro, 

Oriana. 



Ere the light on dark was growing\ 

Oriana, 
At midnight the cock was crowing. 

Oriana : 
Winds were blowing, waters flowing, 
AVe heard the steeds to battle going," 

Oriana ; 
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, 

Oriana. 

In the yew-wood black as niglit, 

Oriana, 
Ere I rode into the fight, 

Oriana, 
While blissful tears blinded my sight 
By star-shiue and by moonlight. 

Oriana, 
I to thee my troth did plight, 

Oriana. 

She stood upon the castle wall, 

Oriana: 
Slie watch'd my crest among them al I, 

Oriana : 
She saw me fight, she h.eard me call, 
When forth there stept a foeman tall, 

Oriana, 
i\.tween me and the castle wall, 

Oriana. 
The bitter arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The false, false arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The damned arrow glanced aside, 
And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 
Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 
Oh! narrow, narrow was the space, 

Oriana. 
Loud, loud rung out the bugle's brays, 

Oriana. 
Oh ! deathful stabs were dealt apace, 
The battle deepen'd in its place, 

Oriana ; 
But I was down upon my face, 

Oriana. 
They should have sta1)b'd me where I lay, 

Oriana ! 
How could I rise and come away, 

Oriana V 
How could I look upon the day ? 
They should have stabb'd me where I lay, 

Oriana — 



12 



THE MERM^IJ). 



They should have trod me. into clay, 

Oriana. 
breaking heart that will not break, 

Oriana! 

pale, pale face so sweet and meek, 

Oriana ! 
Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak 
And tlien the tears run down my cheek, 

Oriana : 
What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, 

Oriana: 

1 cry aloud: none hear niy cries, 

Oriana. 
Tliou eomest atween me and tlie skies. 

Oriana. 
I ieel the tears of blood arise 
Up from my heart unto my eyes. 

Oriana. 
Within thy heart my arrow lies, 

Oriana. 

cursed hand ! cursed blow '. 
Oriana ! 

happy thou that liest low, 

Oriana! 
All night the silence seems to flow 
Eeside me in my utter woe, 

Oriana. 
A weary, weary Avay I go, 

Oriana, 

When Norland winds pipe down the sea, 
Oriana. 

1 walk, I dare not think of thee, 

Oi'iana. 
Thou liest beneatli the greenwood tree, 
I dare not die and come to thee, 

Oriana. 
I hear the roaring of the sea, 

Oriana. 

CIRCUMSTAIS'CE. 

Two children in two neighbour villages 
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas; 
Two strangers meeting at a festival ; 
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall ; 
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; 
Two graves grass-green l)cside a gray 

ichurch-tower, 
Wash'd with stiU'rainsand daisy-! lossomed: 
Two children in one hamlet born and bred 
So runs the round of life from hour to hour 



THE MERMAN. 

T. 

Who would be, 
A merman bold, 
Sitting alone, 
Singing alone, 
Under the sea. 
With a crown of gold. 
On a throne ? 

IT. 

T would be a merman bold 
I would sit and sing the whole of the day-. 
I would till the sea-halls with a voice of 

(power ; 
But at night I w, ould roam abroad and play 
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks^ 
Dressing their hair with thewhitesea-flower; 
And holding them back by their flowing 

(locks 
I would kiss them often under the sea, 
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly; 
And then we would wander away, away 
To the pale-green sea-groves strai2:ht and 
(high, 
Chasing each other merrily. 
III. 
There would be neither moon nor star; 
But tlie wave would make music above us 

(afar — 
Low th nnder and liglit in the magic night — 
Neither moon nor star. 
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, 
Call to each other and whoop and cry 
All night, merrily, merrily -, 
They would pelt me with starry spangles 

(and shells, 
Laughing and^clappingtheir hands between. 
All night, merrily, merrily : 
But I would throw to them back in mine 
Turkis and agate and almoadine : 
Then leaping out upon them unseen 
I would kiss them often under the sea, 
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly. 
! what a happy life were mine 
Under the hollow-hung ocean green 
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea; 
We would live merrily, merrily. 

THE mer:\[aid. 

I. 
Who would be 
A mermaid fair, 



THE LAT)Y OF SHALOTT. 



18 



Singing: alone. f 

Combing her hair 
Under the sea, 
In a golden cnrl 
With a comb of pearl, 
On a throne? 
II. 
I would be a mermaid fair: 
I would sing to myself the whole of the day; 
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; 
And still as I comb'd I w ould sing and say, 
„Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'' ' 
1 wouUl comb my hair till my rinf?lots 
(would fall 
.. Low^ adown, low adown, 
I'rom under my starry sea-bud crowni 
Low adown and aroimd, 
And I should look like a fountain of gold 
Springing alone 
With a shrill inner sound, 
Over the throne 
I In the midst of the hall; 
' Till that great sea-snake under the sea 
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps 
AVould slowly trail himself sevenfold 
Roiind the hall where I sate, and look in at 

(the gate 
With his large calm eyes for the love of me. 
And all the mermen under the sea 
Would feel their immortality 
Die in their hearts for the love of me. [ 

III. 
But at night I would wander away, away, 
I would fling on each side my low-flowing 

(locks, 
And lightly vault from the throne and play 
With the mermen in and out of the rocks ; 
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek, 
On thebroad sea-wolds in tlie crimson shells. 
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea. 
But if any camenear I would call, and shriek, 
And adown the steep like a wave I would 

(leap 
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the 

(dells ; 
For I would not be kiss'd bv all wlio would 

(list, 
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea ; 
They would sue me, and woo me, and flat- 

(ter me, 
In the purple twilights under the sea ; 
But the king of them all would carry me, 
Woo me, and win me, and marry me, 
In the branching jaspers under the sea ; 



Then all the dry pied things that be 

In the hueless mosses under the sea 

Would curl round my silver feet silently, 

All looking up for the love of me. 

A nd if I should carol aloud, from aloft 

All things that are forked, and horned, and 

(soft 
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of 

(the sea 
All looking down for the love of me. 

SOiXTsE T TO J. M. K. 
My hope and heart is with thee — thou 

(wilt be 
k latter Lutiier, and a soldier-priest 
To scare church-harpies from the master's; 

(feast ; 
Our dusted velvets have much need of thee 
Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, 
Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily ; 
But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy 
To embattail and to wall about thy cause 
With iron-worded proof, hating to hark 
The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone 
Half God's good sabbath, while the w^orn- 

(out clerk . 
Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a 

(throne 
Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark 
Arrows of lightnings, I will stand and mark. 

THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 

PART I. 

On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 

To many-tower'd Camelot; 
x\nd up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow " 
Round an island there below 

The island of Slialott. 
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
Little breezes dusk and shiver 
Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
By the island in the river 

Flowing down to Camel ot. 
Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 
Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 

TheLady ofShalott. 
By the margin, willow-veil'd, 
Slide the heavy barges trailM 



14 



TEE LADY OF SHALOTT. 



By slow horses; and niiliail'd 
The sliallop flittetli silken-sail'd 

Skimming down to Caraelot: 
But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 
Or is she kuow"u in all the land. 

The Lady of Shalotfr ' 

Only reapers, reaping early 
In among the bearded barley, 
Hear a song that echoes cheerly 
From the river winding clearly, 

Down to tower'd Caniclot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary, 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
Listenine, whispers v'Tis the'fairy 

LadyofShalott." 

PART IT. 

Theef. she weaves by night and day 
A magic web with colours gay. 
Slie has heard a whisper say, ' 
A curse is on her if she stay 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be. 
And so she weavcth steadily, 
And little other care hatli she, 

The LadyofShalott. 

And moving thro' a mirror clear 
That hangs before her all the year, 
Shadows of the world appear.* 
There she sees the highway near 

Winding down to Camelot: 
There the river eddy whirls. 
And there the surly village-churls, 
And the red cloaks of market girls, 

Pass onward from Shalott. 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 
An abbot on an ambling pad, 
Sometimes a curly shepherd-la 1, 
Or long-haird page in crimson clad, 

Goes by to tower'd Camelot; 
And sometimes thro" the mirror blue 
The knights come riding two and two: 
She hath no loval knight and true. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

But in her web slie still delights 
To weave the mirror's magic sights, 
For often thro' the silent nights 
A funeral, with plumes an-l lights, 

And music, went to Camelot: 
Or when the moon was overhead, 
Came two young lovers lately wed; 



,;T am half sick of shadows/' said 
The Lady of Shalott. 

PAET III. 

A BOW-SHOT from her bower-eaves, 
He rode between the barley-sheaves, 
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,. 
And flamed upon the brazen greaves 

Of bold Sir Lancelot' 
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd 
To a lady in his shield, 
That sparkled on the yellow field. 

Beside remot'e Shalott. 

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, 

Like to some branch of stars we see 

Hung in the golden Galavy. 

The ijridle bells rang merrily 

As he rode down to Camelot. 

And from his blazon'd baldric slung 
I A mighty silver bugle hung, 
'\ And as he rode his armour rung, 
: Beside remote Shalott. 

; All in the blue unclouded weather 

I Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather. 

I The helmet and the helmet feather 

j Burn'dlike one burning fiame together, 

! As he rode down to Camelot. 

i As often thro' the purple night, 

' Below the starry clusters bright, 

Some bearded meteor, trailing light. 
I Moves over still Shalott. 

■ His broad clear brow in sunlight glow "d ; 
; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode ; 
• Trom underneath his helmet flow'd 

His coal-black curls as on lie rode. 
: As he rode down to Camelot. 

; From the bank and from the river 
\ He flash'd into the caystal mirror, 

,/Tirra lirra,'' by the river 
Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom, 
She made three paces thro' the room, 
' She saw the water-lily bloom, 
i She saw the helmet andtlie plume, 
i She look'd doAvn to Camelot. 

j Out flew the web and floated wide ; 
: The mirror crack'd from side to side ; 
,, The curse is come u^^on me,' cried 
The Lady of Shalott. 

PART IV. 

Ix the stormv east-wind strainin^^. 



\ MJRUNA IN 

\ 
T(ic pale yellow woods were waninir, 
Tie broad stream in his banks compUiniuirj 
Hbvily the low shy raining 

Orer tower'd Camelot ; 
Down slie came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 

The Ladi/ of Shalott. 
And down the river's dim expanse — 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Seeing all his own mischance — 
With a glassy countenance 

^ Did she look to Camelot. 
xind at the closing of the day 
She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
The broad stream bore her far awav, 

The Lady of Shalott. 
Lying, robed in snowy Avhite 
That loosely flew to left and right — 
The leaves upon her falling light — 
Thro' the noises of the night i 

She floated do-wn to Camelot : j 

And as the boat-head wound alons: I 

The willowy hills and fields among. i 

They heard her singing her last sou?, 

The Lady of Shalott. 
Heard a carol, mournful, holy. 
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 
Till her blood was frozen slowly. 
And her eyes Avere darkeu'd wholly, 

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. 
For ere she reach'd upon the tide 
The first house by the water-side, 
Singing in her song she died, 

The Lady of Shalott. 
Under tower and balcony, 
By garden- w^all and gallery, 
A gleaming shape she floated by. 
Dead-pale between the houses'high. 

Silent into Camelot. 
Out upon the wharfs they came, 
Knight and burgher, lord and dame. 
And round the prow they read her name, 

The Lady of Shalott. 
AVho is this r andAvhatis here? 
And in the lighted palace near 
Died the sound of royal cheer; 
And they cross'd themselves for fear. 

All the knights at Camelot : 
But Lancelot mused a little space ; 
He said, „She has a lovely face; 
^iod in his mercy lend her grace, 

Tlie Lady of Shalott.*' 



THE SOUTH. 15 

MARIANA L\ THE SOUTH. 
With one black shadow at its feet. 

The house thro' all the level shines, 
Close-latticed to the brooding heat. 

And silent in its dusty vines : 

A faint-blue ridge upon the right. 

An empty river-bed l)efore, 

xind shallows on a distant shore, 

; In glaring sand and inlets bright. 

But ,/Ave Mary," made she moan. 

And „Ave Mary," night and nioni. 
And „Ah," she sang, „to be all alone. 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

She, as her carol sadder grew, 

From brow and bosom slowly down 
Thro' rosy taper fingers drew 

Her streaming curls of deepest brow^i 
To left and right, and made appear. 
Still-lighted in a secret shrine. 
Her melancholy eyes divine, 
The home of woe without a tear. 
And „Ave Mary,'' was her moan, 

„Madonna, sad is night and morn:" 

And "Ah," she sang, ,,to be all alone, 

To live forgotten and love forlorn." 

Till all the crimson changed, and past 

Into deep orange o'er the sea. 
Low on her knees herself she cast, 

Before Our Lady murmur'd she; 
Complaining, „Mother, give me grace 

To help me of my weary load. 

And on the liquid mirror glow'd 
The clear perfection of her face. 

„Is this the form," she made her moan, 

./That won his praises night and morn V" 
And „Ah," she said, „but I wake alone. 

1 sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn." 

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, 

Nor any cloud would cross the vault, 
But day increased from heat to heat, 

On stony drought and steaming salt ; 
Till now at noon she slept again, 

And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass. 
And heard her native breezes pass^ 
And runlets babbling down the glen. 
She breathed in sleep a lower moan, 
And murmuring, as at night and morn, 
She thought, „My spirit is here alone, 
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." 

Dreaming, she knew it was a drearu : 
She felt he Avas and was not there. 
She woke ; tlic babble oi' the si ream 



16 



ELEAM)RE 



Fell, ;ii]il, williout, the steady ylarc 

Shnink one sick willow sere Kiid small. 

Tlie rivcr-bed was dnsty-white: 

Aud all the furnace of tlie light 

6tuck up against the blinding wall. 

She whisper'd, with a stifled moan 

More inward than at night or morn, 
.,Sweet Mother, let me not here alone 
Live forgotten aud die forlorn," 
And, rising, from her bosom drew^ 

Old letters, breathing of her worth, 
For ,,Love," they said, ,/must needs be true, 

To wiiat is lov'eliest npon earth." 
An image seem'd to pass the door, 
To look at her with slight, and say, 
,/But now thy beauty flows away,' 
So be alone for evermore." 

,,0 cruel heart," she changed her tone, 
,/ And cruel love, whose end is scorn, 
Is this the end to be left alone. 
To live forgotten, and die forlorn 1" 
But sometimes in the falling day 

An image seem'd to pass the door, 
To look into her eyes and say, 

,/But thou shalt be alone no more." 
And flaming downw^ard over all 
Trom heat to heat the day decreased, 
And slowiy rounded to the east 
The one black shadow from the wall, 

„The day to night," she made her moan, 
„The day to night, "the niaht to morn, 
And day and night I am left alone 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 
At eve a dry cicala sung, 

There came a sound as of the sea; 
Backward the lattice-blind she flung, ■ 

Andlean'd upon the balcony. 
There all in spaces rosy-bright 
Large Hesper glitter'd oji her tears. 
And deepening thro' the silent spheres. 
Heaven over heaven rose the night. 

And weeping then she made her moan, 
,/Tlie night comes on that knows not morn, 
AVhen 1 shall cease to I)e all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 



ELEANORE. 

Thy dark eyes open'd not. 

>'or flrst reveal'd themselves to English air. 

For there is nothing here, 
AVhich, from the outward to the inward 
(brought. 



Moulded thy baby thought. 

Far oft' from human neighbourhood, 

Thou wert born, on a summer morn, 
A mile beneath the cedar-wood. 
Thy bounteous forehead was not faun'd 

With breezes from our oaken glades, 
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land 

Of lavish lights, and floating shades : 
And flattering thy childish thought 
The oriental fairy brought. 
At the moment of thy birth, 
From old well-heads of haunted rills, 
And the hearts of purple hills, 

And shadow'd coves on a sunny siiore, 
The choicest wealth of all the earth, 
Jewel or shell, or starry ore, 
To deck thy cradle, Eleanore. 
II. 
Or the yellow-banded bees, 
Thro' half-open lattices 
Coming in the scented breeze, 

Fed thee, a child, Iving alone, 
AVith whitest honey in fairy gardens call'd - 
A glorious child, dreaming alone. 
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down, 
With the hum of swarming bees 
Into dreamful slumber lull'd, 
III. 
AVho may minister to thee '? 
Summer herself should minister 

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded 
On golden salvers, or it may be, 
Youngest Autumn, in a bower 
Grape-thicken'd fromthelight, and blinded 

With many a deep-hued bell-like flower 
Of fragrant trailers, when the air 
Sleepeth over all the heaven, 
And the crag that fronts the Even, 
All along the shadowy shore, 
Crimsons over an inland mere, 
Eleanore ! 

IV. 

How may fuU-sail'd verse express, 
How may measured words adore 
The full-flowing harmony 
Of thy swan-like statcliuess, 
Eleanore? 
The luxuriant symmetry 
Of thy floating gracefulness, 
Eleanore? 
Every turn and glance of thine, 
Every lineament divine, 

Eleanore, 
And the steady sunset glow^ 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 



17 



TliHt stays \i])u\i t lice r For in tliee 
Is uothinjjj sudden, nothing single : 
Like two streams of incense free 
From one censer, in one shrine, 
Thouglit and motion mingle. 
Mingle ever. Motions flow 
To one another, even as tho' 
Tlieywere modulated so 
To an unheard melody, 
\ Which lives about tliee, and a sweep 

Of richest paiises, evermore 
Drawn from each other mellow-deep ; 
AVho may express thee, Eleanore V 

Y. 

1 stand before thee, Eleanore ; 

I seeiliy beauty gradually unfold, 
Daily and hourly, more and more. • 
1 muse, as in a trance, the while 

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold 
Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. 
I muse, as in a trance, whene'er 

The languors of the love-deep eyes 
Float on to me. I would I were 

So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies. 
To stand apart, and to adore. 
Gazing on thee for evermore, 
Serene, imperial Eleanore ! 

VI. 

Sometimes, with most intensity 

Gazing, I seem to see 

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep 

Slowly awakeu'd, grow so full and deep 

In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite, 

I cannot veil, or droop my sight. 

But am as nothing in its light : 

As tho' a star, in immost heaven set, 

Ev'u while we gaze on it. 

Should slowly round his orb,and slowly grow 

To a full face, there like a sun remain 

Fix'd — then as slowly fade again, 

And draw itself to what it was before; 

So full, so deep, so slow, 

Thought seems to come and go 

In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore. 

VII. 

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high, 
lloof'd the world with doubt and fear. 

Floating thro' an evening atmosphere. 

Grow golden all about the sky ; 

In thee all passion becomes passionless, 

Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness. 
In a silent meditation. 

Falling into a still delight. 

And luxury of contemplation: 



As waves that up a quiet cow 
Uolling slide, and lying still 
Shadow forth the banks at will : 
Or sometimes they sw^ell and move, 
Pressing up against the land, 
AVith motions of the outer sea : 
x\nd the self-same influence 
ControUeth all the soul and sense 
Of Passion gazing upon tbee. 
His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, 
Leaning his cheek upon his hand. 
Droops both his wings, regarding thee. 
And so would languish evermore, 
Serene, imperial Eleiinore. 

VIII. 

But when I see thee roam, with tresses 

i^unconlined, 
W])ile the amorous, odorous wind 

Breathes low between the sunset anA 
(the moon 

Or, in a shadowy saloon, 
On silken cushions half-reclined; 

I watch thy grace ; and in its place 
My heart a charmed slumber keeps, 

While I muse upon thy face ; 
And a languid fire creeps 
Thro' my veins to all my frame, 
Dissolvingly and slowly: soon 

From thy rose-red lips my name 
Floweth : and then, as in a swoon, 
With dinning sound my ears are rife, 
My tremulous tongue faltereth, 
I lose my colour, I lose my breath, 
I drink the cup of a costly death, 
Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warm- 
(est life. 
I die with my delight, before 
I hear what I would hear from thee ; 
Yet tell my name again to me, 
I tvo7iId be dying evermore, 
So dying ever, Eleanore. 

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 

I SEE the Avealthy miller yet, 

His double chin, his portly size, 
And who that knew him could forget 

The busy wrinkles round his eyes V 
The slow wise smile that, round about 

His dusty forehead drily curFd, 
Seem'd half-within and half-without, 

And full of dealings with the world r 
Tn yonder chair I see him sit, 

Tlirce timrcrs round the old silver cup — 



IK 



THE JflLLER'S DAUGHTER. 



I see liis Lria> eyes twinkle yet 

At his own jest — gray eyes lit up 
\\ itli summer lightnings of a soul 

So full of summer warmth, so glad.. 
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, 

Ilis memory scarce can make me sad. 
Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: 

My own sVeet Alice, we must die. 
There's somewhat in this world amiss 

Shall he unriddled hy and by. 
There's somewhat flows to us in life, 

But more is taken quite aAvay. 
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, 

That we may die the self-same day. 
Have I not found a happy earth '? 

I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
AVould God renew me from my birth 

I'd almost live my life again. 
So sweet it seems Avith thee to walk, 

And once again to woo thee mine — 
It seems in after-dinner talk 

Across the walnuts and the wine — 
To be the long and listless boy 

Late-left an orphan of the squire, 
\Vhere this old mansion mounted high 

Looks down upon the village spire : 
lor even here, where I and you 

Have lived and loved alone so long, 
Each morn my sleep was broken thro' 

By some wild skylark's matin song. 
And oft I heard the tender dove 

In hrry w oodlands making moan ; 
But ere 1 saw your eyes, my love, 

1 had no motion of my own. 
lor scarce my life with fancy play'd 

Before I dream'd that pleasant dream — 
"?till hither thither idly sway'd 

Like those long mosses in the stream. 
Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear 

The milldam rushing down with noise. 
And see the minnows everywhere 

In crystal eddies glance and poise, 
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung 

Below the range of stepping stones, 
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung 

In masses thick with milky cones. 
But, Alice, what an hour was that, 

AVhen after roving in the woods 
('Twas April thenj, I cume and sat 

iielovvthe cliestnuts, wlien their buds 
Were glistening to tlie l)rcezy blue ; 

■And on the slope, an absent fool. 



I cast me down, nor thought of you, 

But angled in the higher i)ool.' 
A love-song I had somewhere read, 

An echo froci a measured strain, 
Beat time to nothing in my head 

From some old corner of the bruin. 
It haunted me, the morning long, 

AVith weary sameness in the rhymes, 
The phantom of a silent song, 

That went and came a thousand times. 
Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood. 

1 watch'dthe little circles die ■ 
They past into the level flood, 

And there a vision caught my eye; 
The reflex of a beauteous forni,'^ 

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, 
As when a sunbeam wavers warm 

"Within the dark and dimpled beck. 
For you remember, you had set, 

That morning, on the casement-edge 
A long green box of mignonette, 

And you were leaning from the ledge : 
And wiien I raised my eyes, above 

They met with two so full and bright — 
Such eyes ! I swear to you, my love. 

That these have never lost their light. 
I loved, and love dispelFd the fear 

That I should die an early death : 
For love possess'dtlie atmosphere, 

And flll'd the breast with purer breath 
My mother thought. Wliat ails the boy'r 

For I was alter'd, and began 
To move about the house with joy. 

And with the certain step of man. 
1 loved the brimming wave that swam 

Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
The sleepy pool above the dam. 

The pool beneath it never still. 
The meal-sacks on the Avhiteu'd floor, 

The dark round of the dripping uheel, 
The very air about the door 

Made^ misty with the floating meal. 
And oft in ramblings on the wold, 

AVhen April nights began to blow, 
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold, 

1 saw the village lights below; 
1 knew your taper far away, 

And full at heart of trembling hope. 
From off the wold I came, and lay 

Upon the freslily-flower'd slope. 
The deen brook groan'd beneath the mill. 

And .,l),y that lamp," I thought, ^shc sits"'- 



THE CULLER'S DAUGHTER. 



The white chalk-quarry from the hill 
Gleam'd to the tlyin^ moon hy lits. 
[ „0 that I were beside her now ! ' 

willsheanswer if I call? 

1 would she give me vow for vow, 

Sweet Alice, if I told her all V" 
iSometimes I saw you sit and spin; 

And; ill the pauses of the wind, 
Sometimes I heard you singw^ithin 

Sometimes your shadow cross'dthel)lind. 
At last you rose and moved the light. 

And the long shadow of the chair 
Flitted across Into the night, 

And all the oasement darken'd there. 
But when at last 1 dared to speak, 
• The lanes.you know,were white withMay, 
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek ' 

Flnsh'd like the coming of the day; 
And so it was — half-sly, half-shy, 

You would, and Avould not, little one ! 
Although I pleaded tenderly. 

And you and I were all alone. 
And slowly was my mother brought 

To yield'consent to my desire : " 
She w'ish'd me happy, but she thouglit 

1 might have look'd a little higher; 
And T was young — too young to wed : 

„Y'et must 1 love her for your sake; 
Go fetch your Alice here,'' 'she said-. 

Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. 
And down T went to fetch my bride : 

But, Alice, you were ill at ease: 
This dress and that by turns you tried, 

Too fearful that you should not please. 
I loved you better for your fears, 

I knew you could not look but well; 
And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, 

I kiss'd away before they fell. 
I watch'd the little flutterings, 

The doubt my mother would not see; 
She spoke at large of many things, 

And at the last she spoke of me ; 
x\nd turning look'd upon your face. 

As near this door you sat apart. 
And rose, and, with a silent grace 

Approaching, press'd you heart to heart. 
Ah, well — but sing the foolish song 

1 gave you, Alice, on the day 
AVhen, arm in arm, we went along, 

A pensive pair, and you were guy 
^Vith bridal flowers — that 1 may seem. 

As in the nights of old, to lie 



Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, 
While those full chestnuts whisper by. 

It is the miller's daughter, 

x\nd she is grown so dear, so dear. 
That I would be the jewel 

That trembles at her ear. 
For hid in ringlets day and night, 
I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 
And I would be the girdle 

About her dainty dainty waist, 
And her heart would beat against ine, 

]n sorrow and in rest. 
And 1 should know if it beat right, 
I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 
And I would be the necklace, 

And all day long to fall and ri?e 
Upon her balmy bosom, 

With her laughter or her sighs, 
And I w^ould lie so light, so light, 
T scarce should be unclasp'd at night. 

A trifle, sweet ! Avhich true love spells 

True love interprets — right alone. 
His light upon the letter dwells, 

For all the spirit is his ow^n. 
So if I waste words now% in truth 

You must blame Love. His early rage 
Had force to make me rhyme in youl li , 

And makes me talk.too much in agt\ 
And now those vivid hours are gone, 

Like mine own life to me thou art. 
Where Past and Present, wound in one, 

Do make a garland for the heart : 
So sing that other song I made, 

Haff-anger'd with my happy lot, 
The day, when in the chestnut shade 

1 found the blue Forget-me-not. 

Love that hath us in the net 
Can he pass, and we forget r 
Many suns arise and set. 
Many a chance the years beget. 
Love the gift is Love the debt : 

Even so 
Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
Love is made a vague regret. 
Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
Idle habit links us yet. 
What is love r for we forget : 
Ah, no! no! 

Look thro' mine eves with thine. True wife, 



20 



(ENOKE. 



Round my true lieart thine arms entwine-, 
^[y other dearer life in life, 

Look thvo' my very soul with thine ' 
Untouch'd with any sliade of years, 

May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! 
They have not shed a many tears, 

iVear eyes, since first I knew them well. 
Yet tears they shed : they had their part 

Of sorrow: for when time was ripe, 
The still affection of the heart 

Became an outward breathing type, 
That into stillness past again, 

And left a w\ant unknown before ; 
Although the loss that brought us pain, 

That loss but made us love the more. 
"With farther lookings on. The kiss, 

The woven arms, seem but to be 
Weak symbolsof the settled bliss, 
Tlie comfort, I have found in thee : 
But that G od bless thee, dear - who wrought 

Two spirits to one equal mind — 
With blessings beyond hope or thought. 
With blessings wliich no words can find. 
Arise, and let us wander forth, 

To yon old mill across the wolds ; 
For look, the sunset, south and north, 

Winds all the vale in rosy folds. 
And fires your narrow casement glass, 

Touching the sullen pool below: 
On the chalk -hill thebearded grass 

Is dry and dewless. Let us go. 

F A T I M A. 
Love, Love, Love ! witherino: might ' 

sun, that from thy noonday height 
Shudderest when I strain my sight, 
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, 

Lo, falling from my constant mind, 
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind, 
1 wliirl like leaves in roaring wind. 

Last night I wasted hateful hours 

Below the city's eastern towers: 

1 thirsted for the brooks, the showers: 
1 roU'd among the tender fiowers : 

I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth : 
I look'd athwart the burning drouth 
Of that long desert to the south. 
Last night, when some one spoke his name, 
From my swift blood that went and came 
A thousand little shafts of flame 
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. 
Love-, fire' once he drew 



With one long kiss my wliole sonl rlivo" 
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 

Before he mounts the hill, I know 

He Cometh quickly : from below 

Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow^ 

Before him, striking on my 1)row. 
In my dry brain my spirit soon, 
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon. 
Faints like a dazzled morning muon. 

The wind sounds like a silver wire, 

And from beyond the noon a fire 

Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher 

The skies stoop down in tlieir desire, 
And, isled in sudden seas of light, 
My heart,pierced thro' with fierce deliglit, 
Bursts into blossom in his sight. 

My whole soul waiting silently, 

All naked in a sultry sky. 

Droops blinded with his shining eye: 

I v:iU possess him or will die. 
I will grow^ round him in his place, 
Grow, live, die looking on his face, 
Die, dying, clasp'd in his embrace. 

(E K Ts E. 
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the 

(glen, 
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to 

(pine, 
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either band 
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway 

(down 
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them 

(roars 
The long brook fallingthro' the clov'n ravine 
In cataract after cataract to the sea. 
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 
Stands up and takes the morning: but in 

(front 
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, 
The crown of Troas. 

Hither came at moon 
Mournful CEnone, wandering forlorn 
Of Pans, once her playmate on the hills. 
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her 

(neck 
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. 
She,leanin2: on a fragment twined with vine. 
San?totliestillness,ti]lthenu)untain-shade 



(ENONE. 



21 



Sloped downward to lier seat from the iip- 

(per cliif. 
,,0 mother Ida, maiiy-fouutain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, liarken ere I die. 
For now the noonday qniet holds the hill : 
The grasshopper is silent in the grass : 
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, 
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. 
The pnrple flowers droop : the golden hee, 
Is lily-cradled ; I alone awake." 
My eyes are fnll of tears, my heart of love, 
My heart is breaking, and my eves are dim, 
And 1 am all aweary of my life. 

„0 mother Ida, many-fonntain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
Hear me, Earth, hear me, Hills, Caves 
That honse the cold crown'd snake I 

(monntain hrooks, 
I am the daughter of a Eiver-God, 
Hear me, fori will speak, and bnild up all 
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls 
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 
A clond that gathei'd shape : for it may be 
That, while I speak of it, a little while' 
My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 

„0 mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
I waited nnderneath the dawning hills, 
Aloft the monntain lawn was dewy-dark, 
x\nd dewy-dark alof i the mountain pine : 
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, 
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, 

(w^hite-hooved, 
Came up from reedy Simois all alone. 

„0 mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft : 
Far up the solitary morning smote 
The streaks of virgin snow. With down- 

(dropt eyes 
I sat alone : white-breasted like a star 
Fronting the dawn he moved: a leopard skin 
Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny 

(hair 
Cluster'd about his temples like a God's ; 
And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow 

(brightens ^ 

When tlie wind blows the foam, and all my 

(heart 
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he 

(came. 

,/Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
He smiletl. and opening out his milk-white 

(pal m 



{ Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold. 
! That smelt umbrosially, and while I look'd 
; And listen'd, the full-lib wing river of speech 
i Came down upon my heart. 
j ,,'My own CEnone, 

; Beautiful-brow'd CEnone, my own soul, 
i Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind in- 
i (grav'n 

j ,/For the most fair,'' would seem to award it 
j (thine, 

I As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt 
I The knolls of J da, loveliest in all grace 
: Of movement, and the charm of married 
I (brows. 

I ,/Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
I He prest the blossom of his lips to mine. 
And added, 'This was cast upon the board, 
When all the full-fared presence of the God f; 
Banged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon 
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere 

(due : 
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, 
Delivering, that to me, by common voice 
Elected umpire. Here comes to-day, 
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each 
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave 
Behind you whispering tuft of oldest pine, 
Mayst well behold them, unbeheld. unheard 
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods." 

.;Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
It was the deep midnoon^ one silvery cloud 
Had lost his way between the piney sides 
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they 

(came, 
2saked they came to that smooth-swarded 

(bower, 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, 
Violet, amaracus. and asphodel. 
Lotos and lilies : and a wind arose. 
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine. 
This way and that, in many^a wild festoon 
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs 
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and 
(thro'. 

„0 mother Ida, harken ere 1 die. 
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, 
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and 
(lean'd 
j Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew, 
j Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom 
j Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows 
I Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods 
. Rise up for vevevence. She to Paris made 



(ENONE. 



Proffer of royal power, Hinple rule 
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue 
"Wlierewith to embellish state, 'from many 

(a vale 
And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with 

(Corn, 
Or labour'd mines nndrainahle of ore. 
Honour,' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll, 
From many an inland town and haven large, 
Mast-thronij'd beneath her shadowing ci- 

(tadel 
111 glassy bays among her tallest towers.' 

„0 mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
Slill she spake on and still she spake of 

(powder, 
'^Yhich in all action is the end of all; 
Power fitted to the season; w^isdom bred 
And throned of wisdom — from all neigh- 

( hour crowns 
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand 
Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from 

(me, 
From me. Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee 

(king-born, 
A sliepherd all thy life but yet king-born, 
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in 

(power, 
Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd 
Kest in a happy place and quiet seats 
Above the thunder, with undying bliss 
In knowledge of their own supremacy.' 

,,T)ear mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
.She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit 
Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of 

(power 
Flatter'dhisspiritjbutPallas where she stood 
Somewhat apart, her clear and l)ared limbs 
O'erthw^arted with the brazen-headed spear 
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold. 
The while, above, her full and earnest eye 
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek 
Kept watch, waiting decision, madeVeply. 
,/Self-reverence. self-knowledsre, self-con- 
(trol, 
Tliese three alone lead life to sovereign 

(power. 
Vet not for power, (power of herself 
AS'ould come uncall'd for) ])ut to live by law. 
Acting the law we live by without fear; 
And, because right is right, to follow riglit 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' 

„Dear motlier Ida, barken ere I die. 
Again she said .- 'i woo thee not with gifts. 



Sequel of guerdon could not alter me 
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, 
So shalt thou find me fairest. 

Yet, indeed, 

If gazing on divinity disrobed 
Tliy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair. 
Unbiass'd by'self-profit, oh! rest thee sure 
ThatI shalliovethee well and cleave to thee, 
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, 
Shall strike w^ithin thy pulses, like a God's, 
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks. 
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow 
Sinew'd with action,and the full-grownwi'l. 
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, 
Commeasure perfect freedom.' 

„Here she ceased 
And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, '0 Paris, 
Give it to Pallas' but he heard me not, 
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me ' 

„0 mother Ida, many fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, 
Fresh as the foam, uew^-bathed in P;iphian 

(wells, 
With rosy slender fingers backward drew 
From her warm brows and bosom her deep 

hair 
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat 
xYnd shoulder: from the violets her light foot 
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form 
I Between the shadows of the vine-bunches 
I Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved . 
I „Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes. 
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh 
Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee 
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece,' 
She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for 

ffear : 
But when 1 look'd, Paris hadraised his arm 
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes, 
i As she Avithdrew into the golden cloud, 
I And I w^as left alone within the bower: 
And from that time to this I am alone , 
And I shall be alone until I die. . 

„Yet. mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
Fairest -- why fairest wife? am I not fair r 
My love hath told me so a thousand tinges. 
Methinks 1 must be fair, for yesterday, 
When T past hv, a wild and wanton pard, 
Eved like the evening star, w itb playful tail 
Cfouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving 
1 (is she r 



THE SISTERS. 



AUnie, my mountain slieplicrtljtliat my arms 
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips 

(prest 
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling 

(dew 
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains 
Mash in the pools of whirling Simois. 

,,0 mother, hear me yet before I die. 
They came, they cut away my tallest pines, 
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy 

(ledge 
High over the blue gorge, and all between 
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract 
Torster'd the callow eaglet — from beneath 
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark 

(morn 
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat 
Low in the valley. jSTever, never more 
Shall lone CEnone see the morning mist 
Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid 
W^itli narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, 
Between the loud stream and the trembling 

(stars. 

,,0 mother, hear me yet before I die. 
1 wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds 
ximong the fragments tumbled from the 

(glens, 
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her. 
The Abominable, that uninvited came 
Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall. 
And cast the golden fruit upon the board, 
And bred this change ; that I might speak 

(my mind, 
xind tell her to her face how much 1 hate 
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 

,,0 mother, hear me yet before 1 die. 
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times, 
In this green valley, under this green hill, 
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? 
Seal'd it with kisses ? water'd it with rears ? 
happy tears, and how unlike to these ! 
happy Heaven,how canst thou see my face? 
happy earth, how canst thou bear my 

(weight ? 

death, death, death, thou ever floating 
(cloud. 

There are enough unhappy on this earth, 
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live : 

1 pray thee, pass before my light of live, 
And shadow all my soul, that I may die. 
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, 
Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die. 

,0 mother, hear me, yet before J die. 



I will not die alone, fur fiery thoughts 

Do shape themselves within me, mure and 

(more, 
Whereof I catch the issue, as Ihear 
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost 

(hills. 
Like footsteps upon wool. 1 dimly see 
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother 
Conjectures of the features of her child 
Ere it is born: her child ! — a shudder comes 
xicross me : never cliild be born of me, 
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes! 

,;0 mother, hear me yet before I die. 
Hear me, earth . 1 will not die alone. 
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me 
Walking the cold and starless road of Death 
Uncomiorted, leaving my ancient love 
With the Greek woman. I will rise and go 
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth 
Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says 
A lire dances before her, and a sound 
Kings ever in her ears of armed men. 
AVhat this may be I know not, but I know 
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, 
All earth and air seem only burning fire." 

THE SISTERS. 
We were two daughters of one race: 
She was the fairest in the face : 

The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
They were together, and she fell : 
Therefore revenge becaaie me well. 

the Earl was fair to see ! 
She died : she went to burning llamc: 
She mix'dher ancient blood with slianie. 

The wind is howling in turret and tree. 
Whole weeks and months,and early and late. 
To win his love 1 lay in wait: 

the Earl was fair to sefe '. 
I made a feast ; I bade him come; 
I won his love. I brought him home. 

The wind is roaring in turret and tree. 
And after supper, on a bed, 
Upon my lap he laid his head : 

the Earl was fair to see ! 
I kiss'd his eyelids into rest : 
His ruddy cheek upon my breast. 

The wind is raging in turret and tree. 
I hated him with the hate of hell. 
But I loved his beauty passing well. 

the Earl was fair to sec 1 
T rose up in the silent nioht-: 



THE PALACE OF All'i\ 



I made i;»y ilu'^gcr shai'p and bright. 

Tlic wind is raving in turrer, and tree. 
As kalf-asleej) his breath he drew, 
Three times 1 stabb'd him thro' and thro'. 

the Earl was fair to see I 
1 curl'd and comb'd his comely liead, 
He look'd so grand when he was dead. 

The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
I wrapt his body in the sheet, 
And laid him at liis mother's feet. 

the Earl was fair to see ! 

TO — 

W ITH THE rOLLOWI>-G POEM. 

I s£XD you here a sort of allegory, 
(For you will understand it) of a'soul, 
A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts, 
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, 
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, 
That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen 
In all varieties of mould and mind; 
And Knowledo;c for its beauty ;. or if Good, 
Good only for its beauty, seeing not 
That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, tire 

(three sisters 
That doat upon each other, friends to man, 
Living together under tlie same roof, 
And never can be sunder'd without tears. 
And he that shuts Love out. in turn shall be 
.shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie 
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this 
\Vas common clay ta'en iTom the common 

(earth, 
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the 

(tears 
Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 



THE PALACE OE ART 
I jiUiLT my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 

AVherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
I said, 7O Soul, make merry and carouse. 

Dear soul, for all is well." 
A liuge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd 

'brass, 

1 chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
From level meadow-bates of deep grass 

Suddenly scaled the light. 
Tliereon 1 built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 

The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 
My soul would live alone unto herself 

Jn her high pal ice th<;re. 
.Vnd „while tlie world runs round and 

(round/' I said, 



„E,eign thou apart, a quiet kiiig, 
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his slcdt'asi 
(shade 

Sleeps on his luminous ring." 
To Avhich my soul made answer readily : 

„Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
In this great mansion, that is built for me. 

So royal-rich and wide." 

Four courts I made, East, West and South 
(and North, 

In each a squared law^n, wherefrom 
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 

A flood of fountain-foam. 
And round the cool green courts there ran 
(a row 

Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods, 
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 

Of spouted fountain-floods. 
And round the roofs a gilded gallery 
I That lent broad verge to distant lands, 
I Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
I Dipt down to sea and sands. 

! From those four jets four currents in one 
1 (swell 

j Across the mountain stream'd below 
I In misty folds, that floating as they fell 
Lit up a torrent-bow. 
And high on every peak a statue seem'd 

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
A cloud of incense of all odour steam 'd 

From out a golden cup. 
So that she thought, „And who shall gaze 
(upon 

My palace watli unbliuded eyes, 
"While this great bow will waver in the sun, 

And that sweet incense rise?" 
i'or that sweet incense rose and never fail'd, 
And. while day sank or mounted higher, 
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail 'd, 

Burnt like a fringe of fire. 
Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and 
(traced, 

AVould seem slow-flaming crimson fires 
From shadow 'd grots of arches interlaced, 
And tipt with frost-like spires. 

Full of long-sounding corridors it was. 

That over-vaulted grateful gloom, 

Tliro' which the livelong day my soul did 

(pa-ss. 



THE PALACE OF ART. 



Well-pleased, from room to room. 
Full of great rooms ami small the palace 
(stood, 

All various, each a perfect whole 
From living Ts^ature, fit for every mood 

Aug change of my still soul. 
For some were hung with arras green and 
(blue, 

Showing a gaudy summer-morn. 
Where with puff'd cheek the helted hunter 
(blew 
His wreathed hugle-horn. 
One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of 
(sand, 

And some one pacing there alone, 
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, 

Lit with a Ioav large moon. 
One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 

You seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing 
(caves. 
Beneath the windy wall. 
And one, a full-fed river winding slow 

By herds upon an endless plain, 
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, 

With shadow-streaks of rain. 
And one, the reapers at their sultry-toil. 

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, 

And hoary to the wind. 
And one, a foreground black with stones 
(and slags, 

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 
All barr'd with long white cloud the scorn- 
(ful crags, 
x\nd highest, snow and hre. 
And one, an English home — gray twilight 
(pour'd 

On dewy pastures, dewy trees. 
Softer than sleep — all things in order 
(stored, 
A haunt of ancient Peace. 
Nor these alone, but every landscape fair 

As fit for every mood of mind, 
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern , was th ere 
!Xot less than truth design'd. 
* * * * 
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix. 

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, 
Beneath branch-work of costly sardony.v: 
Sat smiling, babe in arm. 



Or in a clear-Avall'd city on the sea, 
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily ■ 

All angel look'd at her. 
Or thronging all one porch of Paradise, 

A group of Honris bow'd to see 
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes 

Thatsaid, We wait for thee. 
Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son 

In some fair space of sloping greens 
Lay, dozing in the vale of x-^-velon. 

And watch'd by weeping queens. 
Or hollow"ing one hand against his ear, 

To list a foot-fall, ere he saw 
The wood-nymph, stay 'd the Ansonian king 
I, to hear 
Of wisdom and of law. 
Or over hills w ith peaky tops engrail'd, 

And many a tract of palm andrit-e, 
Thetliroue of Indian Cama slowly sail'd, 

A summer fiinn'd with spice. 
Or sweet Europa's mnntle blue unclasp'd, 
From off her shoulder backward borne : 
From one hand droop'd a crocus : one hand 
grasp'd 

The mild bulFs golden horn. 
Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh 

Half-buried in the Eagle's down, 
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 

Above the pillar'd town. 
Nor these alone : but every legend fair 
Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carved out of Nature for itself, Avas there. 
Not less than life, design'd. 

Then in tlie towers I placed great bells tliat 

(swung, 

Moved of themselves, with silver sound; 
And" with choice paintings of wise men I 

(hung 

The royal dais round. 
For there was Milton like a seraph strong, 

Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild-. 
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd 

(his song, 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 
And there the Ionian father of the rest; * 

A million wrinkles carved his skin 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast 

From cheek and throat and chin. 
Above, the fair liall-ceiiin? stalelv-set 



2(i 



THE PALACE OF ART. 



]\fan\' an arch high up did lift, 
And angels rising and descending met 

"With interchange of gift. 
Below was all mosaic choicely planned 

Witii cycles of the human tale 
Of this wide world, the tunes of every laud 

So wrought, they wil not fail. 
The people here, a beast of l)urden slow, 

Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and 

(stings ; 
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro 

The "heads and crowns of kings ; 
Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind 

All force in bonds that might endure, 
And here once more like some sick man de- 

(clined, 
And trusted any cure. 
But over these she trod: and those tfieat 

(bells 

Began to chime. She took her throne 
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, 

To sing her songs alone. 
And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below ; 
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam. 

The first of those who know. 
And all those names, that in their motion 

(were 

Full-welling fountain-heads of change, 
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair 

In diverse raiment strange : 
Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, eme- 

(rald, blue, 

I'lush'd in her temples and her eyes. 
And from her lips, as morn from Me7nnon. 

(drew 
Bivers of melodies. 
No nightingale delighteth to prolong, 

Her low preamble all alone, 
More than ray soul to hear her echo'd song 

Throb thro' the ribbed stone ; 
Singing and murmuring in her feastful 

(mirth. 

Joying to feel herself alive. 
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth, 

Lord of the senses five -, 
Communing with herself: ,,A11 these are 

(mine, 

And let the world have pe:ice or wars, 
'Tis one to rue.'' She — when young night 

(divine 



Crown'd dying day with stars. 

Making sweet close of his delicious toils — 

Lit light in wreaths and anadems, 
And pure quintessences of precious oils 
In hoUow'd moons of gems. 

To mimic heaven: and clapt her hands unti 

(cried, 

„1 marvel if my still delight 
In this great house so royal-rich, aisd wide. 

Be flattered to the height. 
,,0 all things fair to sate my various eyes! 

shapes and hues that please me Avell 1 

silent faces of the Great and Wise, 

My Gods, with whom I dwell ! 
„0 God-like isolation which art mine, 

1 can but count thee perfect gain, 
"What time I w^atch the darkening droves of 

(swine 
That range on yonder plain. 
In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, 
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; 
And oft some brainless devil enters in, 

And drives them to the deep.'' 
Then of the moral instinct would she prate. 

And of the rising from the dead. 
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate: 

And at the last she said: 
„I take possession of man's mind and deed. 
I care not what the sects may brawl. 

1 sit as God holding no form of creed, 

But contemplating all." 

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 

Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone, 
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirtli, 

And intellectual throne. 
And so she throve and prosper'd : so three 
(years 

She prosper'd : on the fourth she fell. 
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears. 

Struck thro' with pangs of hell. 
Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 

God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 
Plagued her with sore despair. 
AVhen she Avould think, where'er she turn'd 
(her sight, 

The airy hand confusion wrought, 
A\ rote ,/Mene, rnene," and divided quite 
The kingdom of her thought. 



LJBF CLARA VERB DE VERE. 



27 



Deep dread and loathiug of her solitude 

Fell on her, from which mood was horn 
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 

Laughter at her self-scorn. 
„\Vliat! is not this my place of strength,'- 
(she said. 

„My spacious mansion built for me, 
"Whereof the strong foundation-stones were 
(laid 
Since my first memory?" 
But in dark corners of her palace stood 

Uncertain shapes : and unawares 
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of 
(blood, 
And horrible nightmares. 
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, 

And, with dim fretted foreheads all, 
On corpses thrce-months-old at noon she 
(came, 
That stood against the wall. 
A spot of dull stagnation, without light 

Or power of movement, seem'd my soul. 
Mid onward-sloping motions infinite 

Making for one sure goal. 
A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand; 

Left on the shore; that hears all night 
The plunging seas draw backward from the 
(land 
Their moon-led waters white. 
A star that with the choral starry dance 

Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw 
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 

liolFd round by one fix'd law. 
Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. 
„ jVo voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall, 
„^o voice breaks thro' the stillness of this 
(world : 
One deep, deep silence all!" 
Slie,mouldering with the dull earth's nioul- 
(dering sod, 

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame. 
Lay there exiled from eternal God, 

Lost to her place and name; 

And death and life she hated equally, 

And nothing saw, for her despair" 

But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, 

jS'o comfort anywhere; 
Remaining utterly confused with fears, 

And ever worse with growing time, 
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, 
And all alone in crime : 



Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girl round 

With blackness as a solid wall, 
Far oif she seem'd to hear the dully sound 

Of human footsteps fall. 
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 

In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise hears the low 

Moan of an unknown sea ; 
And knows not if it be thunder or a sound 

Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, ,>l have 
(found 
A new land, but 1 die." 
She howl'd aloud, „I am on fire within. 

There comes no murmur of reply. 
What is it that will take away my sin, 

And save me lest I die?" 
So when four years were wholly finished. 

She threw her royal robes away. 
„Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 

,/ Where I may mourn and pray." 
„Yet pull not down my palace towers, that 
(are 

So lightly, beautifully built -. 
Perchance I may return with others there 
When I have purged my guilt." 

LADY CLABA VEBE DE VEllE. 
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Of me you shall not win renown : 
You thought to break a country heart 
For pastime, ere you went to town. 
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 

I was the snare, and I retired -. 
The daughter of a hundred Earls, 

You are not one to be desired. 
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

I know you proud to bear your name, 
Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 

Too proud to care from whence I came. 
Nor would I break for your sweet sake 
A heart that doats on truer charms. 
A simple maiden in her flower 

Is worth a hundred coats of-arnis. 
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Some meeker pupil you must find, 
For were you queen of all that is, 
j I could not stoop to such a mind, 
i You sought to prove how I could love, 
j And my disdain is my reply. 
I The lion on your old stone gates 
' Is not more cold to you than 1. 



Lady Clara Verc cle Vcrc, 

You put strange memories in my liead. 
>'ot thrice yourbraucliiuglimesliaveblown 

Since 1 belield young Laurence dead. 
Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies : 

A great enchantress you may be ; 
But there was that across his throat 

AVhich you had hardly cared to see. 
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

When thus he met his mother's view, 
She had the passions of her kind, 

she spake some certain truths of you. 
Indeed I heard one bitter word 

That scarce is fit for you to hear ; 
Her manners had not that repose 

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

There stands a spectre in your hall: 
The guilt of blood is at your door : 

You cliauged a wholesome heart to gall. 
You held your course without remorse. 

To make him trust his modest worth, 
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, 

Aud slew him with your noble birth. 
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 

From yon blue heavens above us l)ent 
The gard'ener Adam and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent, 
Howe'er it be. it seems to me, 

'"Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Xorman blood. 
1 knoAV you, Clara Vere de Vere, 

You pine among your halls and towers : 
T!ie languid light of your proud eyes 

Is werU'led of the rolling hours. 
In glowing health, with boundless wealth, 

But sickening of a vague disease. 
You know so ill to deal with time. 

You needs must play such pranks as these. 
Clara, Clara, Vere de Vere, 

If Time be lieavy on your hands, 
Arc there no beggars at your gate. 

Nor any poor about your lands 'r 
Oil ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 

Or teach the orphan girl to sew. 
Pray Heaven for a human heart, 

And let the foolish veoman go. 



THE Jljr qUEEK. 

I To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of a] 



THE MAY QUEEN. 
You must wake and call me early, call me \ 
(early, mother dear; ' 



(the glad New-year; 
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the mad- 

(dest merriest day; 
Eor I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm 

(to be Queen o' the May, 
There's many a black black eye, they say, 

(but none so bright as mine;' 
There's Margaret andMary,there's Kate and 

(Caroline: 
But none so fair as little Alice in all the 

(land they say, 
So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm 

(to be Queen o' the may. 
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that 1 

(shall never wake. 
If you do not call me loud when the day be- 

i^gins to break : 
But I must gather knots of flowers, andbuds 

(and garlands gay, 
Eor I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
As I came up the valley whom think ye 

vshould I see. 
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath 

(the hazel-tree V 
He thought of that sharp look, mother, 1 

(gave him yesterday, — 
But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was 

(all in white, 
And I ran by him without speaking, like a 

ulash of light. 
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not 

(what they say, 
Eor I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm 

{{.0 be Queen o' the May. 
They say he's dying all for love', but that can 

(never be : 
They say his heart is breaking, mother — 

(what is that to mey 
There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any 

(summer day. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
Little Efiie shall go with me to-morrow to 

(the green. 
And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me 

(made the Queen; 
Eor the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come 

(from far away. 



THE MAY qVEEN. 



And I'm to be Queen o' ttie May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n 

(its wavy bowers, 
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint 

(sweet cuckoo-flowers; 
And the wild mareh-marigold shine like fire 

(in swamps and hollows gray, 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
The night-winds come and go, mother, 

(upon the meadoAv-grass; 
And the happy stars above them seem to 

(brighten as they pass, 
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of 

(the livelong day. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green 

(and still, 
And the cowslip and tlie crowfoot are over 

(all the hill. 
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill mer- 

(rily glance and play, 
1- or I'm to be Queen o' the Mav, mot\ier, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
So you must wake and call me early, call me 

(early, mother dear, 
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all 

(the glad ]S"ew-year : 
To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the mad- 

(dest merriest day, 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, 

(I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

N E W-Y EARS EVE. 
Ir you're waking call me early, call me 

(early, mother dear, 
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad 

(Kew-year. 
It is the last Kew-year that I shall ever see, 
Then you may lay me low i' the mould and 

(think no more of me. 
To-night I saw the suu set : he set and left 

(behind 
The good of year, the dear old time, and all 

(my peace of mind; 
i\nd the Is e\v -year's coming up, mother, but 

(I shall never see 
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf 

(upon tlie tree. 
Last May we made a crown of flowers; we 

(had a merry day; 



29 

Beneath the hawthorn on the green they 

(made me Queen of May : 
And we danced about the may-pole and in 

(the hazel copse. 
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall 

(white chimney tops. 
There's not a flower on all the hills: the 

(frost is on the pane : 
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come 

(again : 
1 wish the snow would melt and the sun 

(come out on high: 
1 long to see a flower so before the day I die. 
The building rook 'ill caw from the windy 

(tall elm-tree, 
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow 

(lea, 
And the swallow 'ill come back again with 

(summer o'er the wave. 
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the 

(mouldering grave. 
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that 

(grave of mine, 
In the early early morning the summer sun 

('ill shine, 
Before the red cock crows from the farm 

(upon the hill, 
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all 

(the world is still. 
When the flowers come again, mother, be- 

(neath the waning light 
You'll never see me more in the long gray 

(fields at night ; 
When from the dry dark wold the summer 

(airs blow cool 
On the oat-grass and the swofc-grass, and 

(the bulrush in the pool. 
Y'ou'll bury me, my mother, just beneath 

(the hawthorn «liade, 
And you'll come sometimes and see me 

(where I am lowly laid. 
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear 

(you when you pass, 
With your feet above my head in the long 

(and pleasant grass. 
I have been wild and wayward, but you'll 

(forgive me now ; 
Y'ou'U kiss me, my own mother, and forgive 

(me ere I go; " 
iS ay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your 

(grief be wild. 
You should not fret for me, mother,you have 

(another child. 



If I cHii I'll come again, motlier, from out 

(my resting-place; 
Tlio' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look 

(upon your face ; 
Tho' cannot speak a word, I shall harken 

(what you say, 
And be often,often with you Avhen you think 

(I'm far away. 
Goodnight, goednight, when I have said 

'goodnight for evermore, 
And you see me carried out from the thresh - 

(old of the door; 
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave 

(be growing green : 
She'll be a better child to you than ever I 

(have been. 
She'll find my garden-tools upon the grana- 

(ry floor : 
Let her take 'em : they are hers: I shall nev- 

(er garden more : 
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the 

(rose-bush that I set 
About the parlour-window and the box of 

(mignonette. 
Goodnight, sweet mother: call me before 

(tbeday is born. 
Ali night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at 

(morn ; 
But 1 would see the sun rise upon the glad 

(New-year, 
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, 

(mother dear. 

C ^* C L U S I N. 

I THOUGHT ^0 pass away before, arid yet 

Talive I am : 
And in the fields all round I hear the blcat- 

(ing of the lamb. 
How sadly, I rememder, rose the morning 

(of the year ! 
To die before the snowdrop came, and now 

(tlie violet's here. 
sweet is the new violet, that comes be- 

' neath the skies, 
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me 

(tbat cannot rise, 
And sweet is all the land about, and all 

'the flowers that bloAV, 
And sweeter faris death than life to me that 

'long to go. 
It seem'dsohard at flrst,mother,to leave the 

(blessed sun, 



THE MAY qUEEN. 



And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet 

(His will be done ! 
But still I think it can't be long before I 

(find release. 
And that good man, the clergyman, has told 

(me words of peace. 
blessings on his kindly voice and on his 

(silver hair ! 
And blessing on his whole life long, until 

(he meet me there! 

blessings en his kindly heart and on his 
(silver head ! 

A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt 

(beside my bed. 
He taught me all the mercy, for he sliow'd 

(me all the sin. 
Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's 

(One will let me in: 
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if 

(that could be, 
Eor my desire is but to pass to Him that 

(died for me. 

1 did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the 
(death-watch beat. 

There came a sweeter token when the night 

(and morning meet : 
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put 

(your hand in mine, 
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell 

(the sign. 
All in the wild March-morning 1 heard the 

(angels call, 
It Avas when the moon was setting, and the 

(dark was over all ; 
The trees began to whisper, and the wind 

(began to roll. 
And in the wald March-morning I heard 

(them call my soul. 
For lying broad awake I thought of you and 

(Effie dear ; 
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no 

(longer here ; 
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and 

(so I felt resign'd 
And up the valley came a swell of music on 

(the wind. 
I thought that it was fancy, and 1 listend'd 

(in my bed, 
And then did something speak to me — I 

(know not what was said ; ^ 
Eor great delight and shuddering took hold 

(of all my mind, 



THE LOTOS-EAfERS. 



%\ 



And up the valley came aeain the music on 

(the wind. 
But YOU were sleeping and I said, vlt's not 

(for them : it's mine." 
iud if it comes threetimes, I thought, I take 

(it for a sign . 
And once again it came, and close beside 

(the window-bars, 
Then seoiu'd to go right up to Heaven and 

(die among the stars. 
So now I think my time is near. I trust it 

(is. 1 know 
Tlie blessed music went that way my soul 

(will have to go. 
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to- 

(day. 
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am 

(past away. 
And say to Bobin a kind word, and tell him 

(not to fret ; 
There's many a worthier than I, would make 

(him happy yet. 
If I had lived — I cannot tell — I might 

(have been his wife ; 
But all these things have ceased to be, with 

■ my desire of life. 
look 1 the sun begins to rise, the heavens 

(are in a glow ; 
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of 

(them I know. 
And there I move no longer now, and there 

(his light may shine — 
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands 

(than mine. 
sweet and strange it seems to me, that 

(ere this day is done, 
The voice, that now is speaking, may bebe- 

(yond the sun — 
For ever and for ever with those just souls 

(and true — 
And what is life, that we should moan? why 

(make we sucli ado ? 
Forever and forever, all in a blessed home — 
And there to wait a little while till you and 

(Eftie come — 
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon 

(your breast — 
And the wicked cease from troubling, and 

i;the weary are at rest. 

THE LOTOS-EATEB.S. 
,/CorEAGz!'' he said; and pointed toward 
(the land, 



vThis mounting wave will roll us shoreward 

(soon.'' 
In the afternoon they caine unto a land, 
In which it seemed always afternoon. 
All round the coast the languid air did 

(swoon, 
Breathing likex)ue that hath a weary dream. 
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; 
And like a downward smoke, the slender 

(stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did 

(seem. 

A land of streams ! some, like a dow^nward 

(smoke. 
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 
And some thro' wavering lights and shad- 

(ows broke, 
Rolling a sluml.irous sheet of foam below. 
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 
From the inner land : far off, three moun- 

i^tain-tops, 
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, 
Stood sunset-fluslrd: and,dew'dwithshow- 

i.ery drops, 
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the avo- 

(ven copse. 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 
In the red West : thro' mountain clefts the 

(dale 
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
Border'd with palm, and many a winding 

(vale 
And meadow, set with slender galingale; 
A land where all things always seem'd the 

(same 1 
And round about the keel with faces pale, 
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters 

(came. 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, 
Laden with flow er and fruit, wliereof they 

(gave 
To each, but whoso did receive of them, 
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave, 
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake, 
And music in his ears his beating heart did 

t^make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand 
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;" 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



Ami sweet it was to dream of Father-land, 
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 
-Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, 
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 
Tlien some one said, ,, We will return no 

(more ;" 
And all at once they sang, „Our island liome 
Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer 

(roam." 

CHORIC SOXG. 

T. 

There is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Ornight-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies. 
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes ; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from 

(the blissful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 
Ann in the stream the long-leaved flowers 

(weep, 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs 

(in sleep, 

n. 
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness. 
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 
While all things else have rest from w^ea- 

(riness? 
All things have rest : why should we toil 

(alone, 
We only toil, who are the first of things, 
And make perpetual moan, 
Still from one sorrow to another thrown : 
Nor ever fold our wings, 
And cease from wanderings, 
Xor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; 
Xor harken what the inner spirit sings, 
,/ There is no joy but calm !" 
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown 

(of things? 

III. 
Lo I in the middle of the wood, 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch, and there 
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 
.Siin-stcep'd at noon, and in the moon 
^Sightly dew-fed; and turning yelloAV 
Fails, and floats adown the air! 
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, 
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 
Drops in a silent autumn night. 



All its allotted length of days, 

The flower ripens in its place, 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

lY. 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 
Death is the end of life ; ah, why 
Should life all labour be ? 
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast. 
And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
Let us alone. AVhat is it that will last? 
All things are taken from us, and become 
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past, 
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
To w^ar with evil? Is there any peace 
In ever climbing up the climbing wave"^ 
All things have rest, and ripen toward the 

(grave 
In silence; ripen, fall and cease ; 
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or 

(dreamful ease. 

y. 
How sweet it were, hearing the downward 

(stream, 
With half-shut eyes ever to seem 
Falling asleep in a half-dream ! 
To dream and dream, like yonder amber 

(light, 
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the 

(height ; 
To hear each other's whisper'd speech ; 
Eeating the Lotos day by day, 
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 
And tender curving lines of creamy spray: 
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
To theinfluence of mild-minded melancholy-. 
To muse and brood and live again in 

(memory, 
With those old faces of our.infancy 
Heap'd over with a mound of grass. 
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn 

(of brass ! 

VI, 

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 
And dear the last embraces of our wives 
And their warm tears : but all hath suffer'd 

(change ; 
For surely now our household hearts are 

(cold: 
Our sons inherit us; our looks are strange : 
And we should come like ghosts to tronblt- 
Or else the island princes over-bold 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



Have eat our substance, and the minstrel 

(sings 
Before them of the then years' war in Troy, 
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten 

(things, 
Is there confusion in the little isle V 
Let what is broken so remain. 
The Gods are hard to reconcile : 
'Tis hard to settle order once again. 
There is confusion worse than death, 
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain. 
Long labour unto aged breath, 
Sore task to hearts worn out with many 

(wars 
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the 

(pilot-stars. 

VII. 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and nioly. 
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blow- 

(ing lowly) 
With half-dropt eyelids still. 
Beneath a heaven dark and holy. 
To watch the long bright river drawing 

(slowly 
His waters from the purple hill — 
To hear the dewy ec>.oes calling 
I'rom cave to cave thro' the thick-twined 

(vine — 
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath di- 

(vine ! 
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling 

(brine, 
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out be- 

(neath the pine. 

VIII. 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : 
The Lotos blows by every winding creek : 
All day the wind breathes low withmellow- 

(er tone : 
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 
Round and round the spicy downs the yel- 

(low Lotos-dust is blown. 
We have had enough of action, and ofmo- 

(tion v/e, 
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when 

(the surge was seething free. 
Where the wallowing monster spouted his 

(foam-fountains in the sea. 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an 

(equal mind, 
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie 

(reclined 



On the hills like Gods together, careless of 

(mankind. 
For they lie beside their nectar, and the 

(bolts are hurl'd 
Far below them in the valleys, and the 

(clouds are lightly curl'd 
Hound their golden houses, girdled with the 

(gleaming world: 
Where they smile in secret, looking over 

(wasted lauds, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, 

(roaring deeps and fiery sands, 
Clangino- fight, and flaming towns^ and sink- 

(ing ships, and praying hands. 
But they smile, they find a music centred 

(in a doleful song 
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient 

(tale of wrong, 
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words 

(are strong ; 
Cbanted from an ill-used race of men that 

(cleave the soil. 
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with 

(enduring toil. 
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and 

(wine and oil ; 
Till they perish and they suffer — some 'tis 

(whisper'd — down in hell 
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian 

(valleys dwell, 
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of as- 

(phodel. 
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than 

(toil, the shore 
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind 

(and wave and oar ; 
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not 

(wander more. 

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 
I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, 

„ The Legend of Good Women," long ago 
Sung by the morning star of song, who made 

His music heard below ; 
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet 
(breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 

With sounds that echo still. 
x\nd, for a while, the knowledge of his art 

Held me above the subject, as strong gales 
Hold swollen clouds from raining, the' my 
(heart, 

2 



u 



A j)UEA2i OF Fair women. 



Brimful of those wild tales, 
Charged both mine eves with tears. In everv 
(land 

I saw,, wherever light illumineth. 
Beauty and anguish walking hand in Lund 

The downward slope to death. 
Those far-renowned brides of ancient song 

Peopled the hollow dark, like bnrning 



And I heard sounds of insnlt, shame, and 
(wrong, 
And trumpets blown for wars ; 
And clattering flints batter'd with clang- 
(ing hoofs : 
And I saw crowds in column' d sanctua- 
(ries ; 
And forms that pass'd at windows and on 
(roofs 
Of marble palaces; 
Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall 
_ Pislodging pinnacle and parapet 
Lpon the tortoise creeping to the wall ; 

Lances in ambush set ; 
And high shrine-doors burst thro' with 
(heated blasts 
That run before the fluttering tongues of 
(fire ; 
White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and 
(masts, 
And ever climbing higher ; 
Squadrons and squares of men in brazen 
(plates ; 
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, diverswoes, 
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron 
(grates, 
Andhush'd seraglios. 
So shape chased shape as swift as, when to 
(land 
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same 
(way, 
Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, 

Torn from the fringe of spray. 
I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, 
Resolved on noble things, and strove to 
(speak, 
As when a great thought strikes along the 
(brain, 
And flushes all the cheek. 
And once my arm was lifted to hew down 

A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, 
That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town : 
And thcit, I know not how. 



, by doAvn-lapsing 

and 



d with 

vdone, \\ 
wilight n 



All those sharp fancie 
(thought 
Stream'd onward, lost their edges, 
(did creep 
RoU'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, 
ijind brought 
Into the gulfs of sleep. 
At last methought that I liad wander'd far 
In an old wood: fresh-wash'd in coolest dew, 
The maiden splendours of the morning star 

Shook in the stedfast blue. 
Enormous elmtree-boles dit stoop and lean 

Upon the dusky brushw^ood underneath 
Their broad curved branches, fledged with 
(clearest green, 
JN'ew from its silken sheatii 
The dim red morn had died,her journey 
And with dead lips smiled at the twili: 
(plain, 
Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun, 

Never to rise again. 
There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 

Not any song of bird or sound of rill; 
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 

Is not so deadly still, 
xis that wide forest. Growths of jasmine 
(turn'd 
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 
And at the root thro' lush green grasses 
(burn'd 
The red anemone, 
I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I 
(knew 
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn 
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks 
(drench'd in dew, 
Leading from lawn to lawn. 
The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 
The times when I remember to have l)een 

Joyful and free from blame. 
And from withimue a clear under-tone 
Thriird thro' mine ears in that unbliss- 
(ful clime, 
,;Pass freely thro' : the wood is all thine own, 

Until the end of time." 
At length I saw a lady within call, 
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing 
(there; 
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall. 
And most divinelv fair. 



i 



A DREJjr OF FAIR li'OMEN. 



85 



Her loveliness with shame and with surprise 

Froze my swift speech : she turning on 
(my face 
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, 

Spoke slowly in her place. 
„\ had great beauty : ask thou not my name : 

No one can be more wise than destiny. 
Many drew swords and died. Where'er I 
(came 

I brought calamity." 

„No marvel, sovereign lady : in fair field. 

Myself for such a face had boldly died," 
I answer 'd free; and turning I appeal'd 

T© one that stood beside. 
But she, with sick and scornful looks averse. 
To her full height her stately stature 
(draws ; 
„My youth," she said, „was blasted with a 
* (curse : 

This woman was the cause. 
„1 was cut off from hope in that sad place, 
Which yet to name my spirit loathes and 
(fears : 
My father held his hand upon his face ; 

1, blinded with my tears, 
,^ Still strove to speak: my voice was thick 
(with sighs 
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry 
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish 
(eyes, 
Waiting to see me die. 
„Tbe high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat ; 
The crowds, thetemples, waver'd and the 
(shore ; 
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's 
(throat, 
Touch'd; and I knew no more." 
Where to the other with a downward brow. 
,,1 would the white cold heavy-plunging 
foam, 
Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd mc deep 
(below, 
Then when I left my home." 
Her slow full words sank thro' the silence 
(drear, 
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea ; 
Sudden I heard a voice that cried, ,/Come 
(here, 
That I may look on thee." 
I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, 



One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd ; 
A queen,with swarthy cheeks and bold black 
(eyes. 

Brow-bound with burning gold. 
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began : 

7I govern'd men by change, and so 1 

(sway'd 
All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man. 

Once, like the moon, I made. 
„The ever-shifting currents of the blood 

According to my humour ebb and flow. 
I have no men to govern in this wood : 

That makes my only woe. 
,/ jN'ay — yet it chafes me that I couldnot bend 

One will;nor tame and tutor with mine eye 
That dull cold-blooded Ceesar. Prythee, 
(friend, 

Where is Mark Antony ^i 
„The man, my lover, Avith whom I rode sub- 
(lime 

On furtune's neck : we sat as God by God : 
The iS'ilus would have risen before his time 

And flooded at our nod. 
,/We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit 

Lamps which outburn'dCauopus.O my life 
In Egypt ! the dalliance and the wit, 

The flattery and the strife, 
,/xind the wild kiss, when fresh from war's 
(alarms. 

My Hercules, my Roman Antony, 
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, 

Contented there to die ! 
,/ And there he died: and when I heard my 
(name 

Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook 
(my fear 
Of the other: with a worm I balk'dhis fame. 

What else was left? look here I" 
(With that she tore her robe apart, and half 

Thepolish'd argent or her breast to sight 
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, 

Showing the aspick's bite) 
,J died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 

Me lying dead,my crown about my brows, 
x\ name for ever! — lying robed and crown'd, 

Worthy a Roman spouse." 
Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range 

Struck by all passion, did fall down and 
(glance 
From tone to tone,and glidedthro' all change 

Of liveliest utterance. 



36 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 

When she made pause I knew not for delight; 
Because with sudden motion from the 
(ground 
Slie raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with 
(light 
The interval of sound. 



Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest 
(darts : 

x\s once they drew into two burning rings 
AllbeamsofLove.meltingthe mighty hearts 

Of captains and of kings. 
Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard 

A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn, 
And singing clearer than the crested bird, 

That claps his wings at dawn. 
„The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel 

From craggy hollows pouring, late and 
(soon, 
Sound all night long,in falling thro' the dell, 

Tar-heard beneath the moon. 
„The balmy moon of blessed Israel 

Floods all the d eep-blue gloom with beams 
(divine: 
All night the splinter'd crags that wall the 
(dell 

With spires of silver shine.'' 

As one that museth where broad sunshine 
(laves 
The lawn by some cathedral,tliro' the door 
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves 

Of sound on roof und floor 
Within, and anthem sung, is charm'dand 
(tied 
To where he stands, — so stood I, when 
(that flow 
Of music left the lips of her that died 

To save her father's vow ; 
The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, 

A maiden pure ; as when she went along 
From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome 
light, 
A\ ith timbrel and with song. 

My words leapt forth : /, Heaven heads the 
(count of crimes 
With that wild oath." She render'd ans- 
(werhigh : 
^Not so, nor once alone: a thousand times 
I would be born and die. 

//Single I grew.like some green plant,whose 
(root 
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath, 



Feeding theflower; but ere my flower to fruit 

Changed, I was ripe for death. 
vMy God, my land,my father-these did move 

Me from my bliss of life,that]S'ature gave, 
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love 

Down to a silent grave. 
„And I went mourning, 'No fairHebrew boy 

Shall smile away my maiden blame among 
The Hebrew mothers'— emptied of all joy, 

Leaving the dance and song. 
,/Leaving the olive-gardens far below, 

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, 
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow 

Beneath the battled tower. 
,/The light white cloud swam over us. Anon 
We heard the lion roaring from his den; 
We saw the large white stars rise one by one, 
Or, from the darken'd glen, 

,/ Saw God divide the night with flying flame, 
x\nd thunder on the everlasting hills. 

I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became 
A solemn scorn of ills. 

„When the next moon wass roll'd into the 

(sky. 

Strength came to me that equall'd my 
(desire. 
How beautiful a thing it was to die 

For God and for my sire ! 

,/lt comforts me in this one thought to dwell, 
That I subdued me to my father's will; 

Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell. 
Sweetens the spirit still. 

//Moreover it is written that my race 
Hew'd Amnion, hip and thigh, from Aroer 

On Arnon unto Minneth." Here her face 
Glow'd, as I look'd at her. 

She lock'd her lips: sheleftme where I stood: 
,,Glory to God," she sang, and past afar, 

Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, 
Toward the morning-star. 

Losing her carol I stood pensively. 
As one that from a casement leans his 
(head. 
When midnight bells cease ringing sud- 
(denly. 
And the old year is dead. 

,/Alas ! alas!" a low voice, full of care, 
Murmur'd beside me : „Turn and look 
(on me: 



MARGARET. 



37 



I ctm that Rosamond, whom men call fair, 

It" what I was I be. 
, Would I had been some maiden coarse and 
(poor ! 
me, that I sliould ever see the light ! 
Tliose dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor 

Do hunt me, day aud night." 
She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and 
(trust : 
To whom the Egyptian: „0, you tamely 
(died ! 
You should have clung to Eulvia's waist, 
(and thrust 
The dagger thro' her side." 
With that sharp sound the white dawn's 
(creeping beams, 
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery 
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams 

Ruled in the eastern sky. 
Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark. 
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last 
(trance 
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc. 

A light of ancient Erance ; 
Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish 
(Death, 
Who kneeling, with one arm about her 
(king, 
Drew forth the poison with her balmy 
(breath, 
Sweet as new buds in Spring 
No memory labours longer from the deep 
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden 
(ore 
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep 

To gather and tell o'er 
Each little sound and sight. With what dull 
(pain 
Compass'd, how eagerly 1 sought to strike 
Into that wondrous track of dreams again ! 

But no two dreams are like. 
As when a soul laments, which hath been 
(blest, 
Desiring what is mingled with past years, 
In yearnings that can never be exprest 

By signs or groans or tears; 
Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest 
(art, 
Eailing to give the bitter of the sweet, 
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart 
Faints, faded by its heat. 



MARGARET. 



SWEET pale Margaret, 

rare pale Margaret, 
What lit your eyes with tearful power, 
Like moonlight on a falling shower V 
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower 

Of pensive thought and aspect pale, 

Your melancholy sweet and frail 
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower ? 
From the westward-winding flood. 
From the evening-lighted wood, 

From all things outward you have won 
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood 

Between the rainbow and the sun 
The very smile before you speak, 
That dimples your transparent cheek, 

Encircles all the heart, and feedeth 
The senses with a still delight 

Of dainty sorrow without sound, 

Like the tender amber round, 

Which the moon about her spreadeth, 
Moving thro' a fleecy night. 

II. 
You love, remaining peacefully, 

To hear the murmur of the strife, 

But enter not the toil of life. 
Your spirit is the calmed sea, 

Laid by the tumult of the fight. 
You are the evening star, alway 

Remaining betwixt dark und bright : 
Lull'd echoes of laborious day 

Come to you, gleams of mellow light 

Float by you on the verge of night. 
III. 
What can it matter, Margaret, 

What songs below the waning stars 
The lion-heart, Plantagenet, 

Sang looking thro' his prison bars ? 
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell 
The last wild thought of Chatelet, 

Just ere the falling axe did part 

The burning brain from the true heart, 
Even in her sight he loved so well ? 

IV. 

A fairy shield your Genius made 

And gave you on your natal day. 
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade. 

Keeps real sorrow far away. 
You move not in such solitudes, 

You are not less divine. 
But more human in your moods, 

Than your twin-sister, Adeline. 
Your hair is darker, and your eyes 



THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 



Touch'd with a somewliat darker hue, 
And less aerially blue, 
But ever trembling thro' the dew 
Of dainty-woeful sympathies. 

V. 

sweet pale Margaret, 

rare pale Margaret, 

Come down, come down, and, hear me speak; 
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek: 

The sun is just about to set. 
The arching limes are tall and shady. 

And faint, rainy lights are seen, 

Moving in the leavy beech. 

Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, 

'\A'liere all day long you sit between 
Joy and woe, an"d v/hisper each. 
Or only look across the lawn, 

Look out below your boAver-eaves, 
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn 

Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. 

THE BLACKBIRD. 

Blackbird ! sing me something well : 
"While all the neighbours shoot thee round, 

1 keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, 
"Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. 
The espaliers and the standards all 

Are thine ; the range of lawn and park : 
The unnetten black-hearts ripen dark, 

All thine, against the garden wall. 

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring. 
Thy sole delight is, sitting still, 
AVith that cold dagger of thy bill, 

To fret the summer jenneting. 

A golden bill ! the silver tongue, 
Cold February loved, is dry : 
Plenty corrupts the melody 

That made thee famous once, when young. 

And in the sultry garden-squares, 
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, 
1 hear thee not at all, or hoarse 

As when a hawker hawks his wares. 

Take warning! he that will not sing 
"While yon sun prospers in the blue, 
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, 

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 

"Lull knee-neep lies the winter snow, 
And the winter winds are wearily sighing : 
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
And tread softly and speak low, 



For the old year lies a-dying. 

Old year, you must not die; 

You came to us so readily, 

You lived with us so steadily. 

Old year; you shall not die. 
He lieth still : he doth not move : 
He will not see the dawn of day. 
He hath no other life above. 
He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, 
And the New-year will take 'em away. 

Old year, you must not go • 

So long as you have been with us, 

Such joy as you have seen with us, 

Oln year, you shall not go. 
He froth'd his bumpers to the brim; 
A jollier year we shall not see. 
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim. 
And tho' his foes speak ill of him, 
He was a friend to me. 

Old year, you shall not die ; 

We did so laugh and cry with you, 

I've half a mind to die with you, 

Old year, if you must die. 
He was full of joke and jest, 
But all his merry quips are o'er. 
Te see him die, across the waste 
His son and heir doth ride post-haste. 
But he'll be dead before. 

Every one for his own. 

The night is starry and cold, my friend. 

And the New-year blithe and bold, my 
(friend. 

Comes up to take his own. 
How hard he breathes ! over the snow 
I heard just now the croAving cock. 
The shadows flicker to and fro, 
The cricket chirps: the light burns loAV : 
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. 

Shake hands, before you die. 

Old year, Ave'il dearly rue for you : 

What is it we can do for you: 

Speak out before you die. 
His face is groAving sharp and thin. 
Alack ! our friend is gone. 
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin : 
Step from the corpse, and let him in 
That standeth there alone. 

And Avaiteth at the door. 

There's a new foot on the floor, my friend. 

And a ncAV face at the door, my friend, 

A new face at the door. 



TO J. S. 



S9 



TO J. S. 
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows 

More softly round the open wold, 
x\nd gently comes the world to those. 

That are cast in gentle mould. 
And me this knowledge bolder miide, 

Or else I liad not dared to flow 
In these words toward you, and invade 

Even with a verse your holy woe. 
'Tis strange that those we lean on most, 

Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed 
Fall into shadow, soonest lost : 

Those we love first are taken first. 
€rod gives us love. Something to love 

He lends us ; but, when love is grown 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 

Falls off, and love is left alone. 
This is the curse of time. Alas ! 

In grief I am not all unlearn'd ; 
Oncethro' mine own doors Death did pass : 

One went, who never hath return'd. 
He will not smile -r- not speak to me 

Once more. Two years his chair is seen 
Empty before us. That was he 

Without whose life I had not been. 
Your loss is rarer; for this star 

Rose whith you thro' a little arc 
Of heaven, nor having wander'd far 

Shot on the sudden into dark. 
I knew your brother : his mute dust 

I honour and his living worth : 
A man more pure and bold and just 

Was never born into the earth. 
I have not look'd upon you nigh, 

Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep. 
Great Nature is more wise than I : 

I will not tell you not to weep. 
And tho' mine OAvn eyes fill with dew. 

Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, 
I will not even preach to you, 

^Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain." 
Let Grief be her own mistress still. 

She loveth her own anguish deep 
More than much pleasure. Let her will 

Be done — to weep or not to weep. 
I will not say ,,God's ordinance 

Of Death is blown in every wind/' 
For that is not a common chance 

That takes away a noble mind, 
liis memory loner will live alone 



In all our hearts, as mournful light 
That broods above the fallen sun, 

And dwells in heaven half the night. 
Vain solace! Memory standing near 

Cast down her eyes, and in her throat 
Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear 

Dropt on the letters as I wrote. 
1 wrote I know not what. In truth, 

How should I soothe you anyway, 
Who miss the brother of your youth ? 

Yet something I did wish to say : 
For he too was a friend to me ; 

Both are my friends, and my true breast 
Bleedeth for both; yet it may be 

That only silence suiteth "best. 
Words weaker than your grief would make 

Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease 
Although myself could almost take 

The place of him that sleeps in peace. 
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace : 

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase. 

And the great ages onward roll. 
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet- 
Nothing comes to thee new or strange 
Sleep fullof rest from head to feet; 

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. 

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, 
Whithin this region I subsist. 
Whose spirits falter in tlie mist, 

And languish for the purple seas? 

It is the land that freemen till, 
That sober-suited Freedom chose, 
The land, where girt with friends or foes 

A man may speak the thing he will; 

A laud of settled government, 
A land of just and old renown, 
Where Freedom I)roaden3 slowly down 

From precedent to precedent : 

Where faction seldom gathers head, 
But by degrees to fullness wrought, 
The strength of some diffusive thought 

Hath time and space to work and spread. 

Should banded unions persecute 
Opinion, and induce a time 
When single thought is civil crime, 

And individual freedom mute ; 

Tho' Power should make from land to land 
The name of Britain trebly s;reat — 



40 



„LOrE THOU THT LAND.'' 



Tho' every channel of the State 
Shoiild almost choke with golden sand — 
Yet waft rae from the harbour-mouth, 

AVild wind! I seek a warmer sky. 

And I will see before I die 
The palms and temples of the South. 



Of old sat Ireedom on the heights, 

The thunders breaking at her feet : 
Above lier shook the starry lights : 

She heard the torrents meet. 
There in her place she did rejoice, 

Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind. 
But fragments of her mighty voice 

Came rolling on the wind. 
Then stept she down thro' town and field 

To mingle with the human race, 
And part by part to men reveal'd 

The fullness of her face — 
Grave mother of majestic works. 

From her isle-altar gazing down, 
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, 

And, King-like, wears the crow' n : 
Her open eyes desire the truth. 

The w'isdom of a thousand years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 

Keep dry their light from tears ; 
That her fair form may stand and shine. 

Make bright our days and light our 
(dreams. 
Turning to scorn with lips divine 

The falsehood of extremes ! 



Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
From out the storied Past, and used 
AVithin the Present, but transfused. 

Thro' future time by pow^r of thought. 

True love turn'd round on fixed poles. 
Love, that endures not sordid ends. 
For Englisli natures, freemen, friends. 

Thy brothers and immortal souls. 

But pamper not a hasty time, 
Nor feed with crude'imaginings 
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, 

That every sophister can lime. 

Deliver not the tasks of might 
To weakness, neither hide the ray 
From those, not blind, who wait for day, 

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 

Make knowledge ciicle with the winds ; 
But let her herald, Reverence, fly 



Before her to wliatever sky 

Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 

Watch what main-currents draw the years: 
Cut Prejudice against the grain : 
But gentle words are always gain : 

Regard the w^eakness of thy peers : 

Xor toil for title, place, or touch 
Of pension, neither count on praise : 
It grows to guerdon after-days : 

IN^or deal in watch-words overmuch 

Isot clinging to some ancient saw ; 
Not master'd by some modern term ; 
IS'ot swift nor slow to change, but firm: 

And in its season bring the law ; 

That from Discussion's lip may fall 
WithLife, that, working strongly, binds - 
Set in all lights by many minds,' 

To close the interests of all. 

For nature also, cold und warm, 
And moist und dry, devising long. 
Thro' many agents' making strong, 

Matures the individual fprm. 

Meet is it changes should control 
Our being, lest we rust in case, 
We all are changed by still degrees, 

All but the basis of the soul. 

So let the change whicli comes l)e free 
To ingroove itself with that, which flies. 
And work, a joint of state, that plies 

Its oflice, moved with sympathy. 

A saying, hard to shape in act 
For all the past of Time reveals 
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, 

Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. 

Ev'n now we hear with inward strife 
Amotion toiling in the gloom — 
The Spirit of the years to come 

Yearning to mix himself with Life. 

A slow-develop'd strength awaits 
Completion in a painful school; 
Phantoms of other forms of rule, 

New Majesties of mighty States — 

The warders of the growing hour. 
But vague in vapour, hard to mark; | 

And round them sea and air are dark ! 

With great contrivances of Power. ' 

Of many changes, aptly join'd. 
Is bodied forth the second whole. 
Regard gradation, lest the soul 

Of Discord race the rising wind; 



THE EPIC. 



41 



A wiud to puff your idol-fires, 

And heap the"!! ashes on the head ; 

To shame the boast so often made, 
That we are wiser than our sires. 
Oh yet, if Nature's evil star 

Drive men in manhood, as in youth, 

To follow flying step? of Truth 
Across the brazen bridge of war — 
If New and Old, disastrous feud, 

Must ever shock, like armed foes, 
- And this be true, till Time shall close, 
That Principles are rain'd in blood ; 
Not yet the wise of heart would cease 

To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt. 

But with his hand against the hilt 
AVould pace the troubled land, like Peace ; 
Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay. 

Would serve his kind in deed and word. 

Certain, if knowledge bring the sword. 
That knowledge takes the sword away — 
Would love the gleams of good that broke 

From either side, nor veil his eyes -. 

And if some dreadful need should rise 
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke : 
To-morrow yet would reap to-day. 

As we bear blossoms of the dead ; 

Earn w^ell the thrifty months, nor wed 
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 



THE GOOSE. 
1 KNEW an old Avife lean and poor. 

Her rags scarce held together. 
There strode a stranger to the door. 

And it was windy weather. 
He held a goose upon his arm. 

He utter'd rhyme and reason, 
„Here, take the goose, and keep you warm. 

It is a stormy season." 
She caught the white goose by the leg, 

A goose — 't was no great matter. 
The goose let fall a golden e^g 

With cackle and with clatter. 
She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf. 

And ran to tell her neighbours ; 
And bless'd herself, and cursed herself. 

And rested from her labours. 
And feeding high, and living coft, 

Grew plump and able-bodied ; 
Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, 

The parson smirk'd aiid nodded. 



So sitting, served by man and maid. 

She felt her heart grow prouder : 
But ah ! the more the white goose laid 

It clack'd and cackled louder. 
It clutter'd here, it chuckled there ; 

It stirr'd the old wife's mettle : 
She shifted in her elbow-chair, 

xind hurl'd the pan and kettle. 
,/A quinsy choke thy cursed note !" 

Then wax'd her anger stronger. 
„Go, take the goose, and wiring her throat, 

I will not bear it longer." 
Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat; 

Ban Gaffer, stumbled Gammer. 
The goose flew this way and flew that. 

And fill'd the house with clamour. 
xis head and heels upon the floor 

They flounder'd all together, 
There strode a stranger to the door, 

And it was windy weather : 
He took the goose upon his arm. 

He utter'd words of scorning ; 
,,So keep you cold, or keep you warm. 

It is a stormy morning." 
The wild wind rang from park and plain, 

And round the attics rumbled. 
Till all the tables danced again. 

And half the chimneys tumbled. 
The glass blew in, the fire blew out. 

The blast was hard and harder. 
Her cap blew off, her gown blew up. 

And a whirlwind clear'd the larder : 
And while on all sides breaking loose 

Her household fled the danger. 
Quoth she, ,;The Devil take the goose, 

And God forget the stranger \" 

THE EPIC. 

At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, — 
The game of forfeits done — the girls all 

kiss'd 
Beneath the sacred bush and past away — 
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, 
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl. 
Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a 

(talk , 
How all the old honour had from Christmas 

(gone. 
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd 

(games 
In some odd nooks like tliis.; till I, tired out 



AYitli cuttiug eigliistlmtcUiy upon the pond, 
Where, three times slipping ii'oni tlie outer 

(edge, 
1 bunip'd the ice into three several stars, 
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard 
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, 
Now harping on the church-commissioners, 
:Sow hawking at Geology and schism ; 
Until I woke, and found him settled down 
Upon the general decay of faith 
Right thro' the world,' „at home was little 

(left. 
And none abroad: there was noanchor,none, 
To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his 

(hand 
On Everard's shoulder, with „1 hold by him. " 
,,And J," quoth Everard, ,/by the wassail- 

(bowl." 
„AYhy yes," I said, „we kncAv your gift that 

(way 
At college: but another which you had, 
I mean of verse (for so we held it then.) 
"What came of that'r" „You know," said 

(Irank, ,/he burnt 
His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve 

(books" — 
And then to me demanding why? „0h, sir. 
He thought that nothing new was said, or 

(else 
Something so said 'twas nothing — that a 

(truth 
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day : 
God knows : he has a mint of reasons : ask. 
It pleased uie well enough." „Nay, nay," 

(said Hall, 
,,AVhy take the style of those heroic times? 
ior nature brings not back the Mastodon, 
Nor w^e those times -, and Avhy should any 

(man 
Remodel models? these twelve books of mine 
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing- worth, 
Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt." 

CBiitl," 
Said Irancis, „pick'd the eleventh trom tins 

(hearth, 
And liave it : keep a thing, its use will come. 
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes." 
He laugli'd, and 1, though sleepy, like a horse 
That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my 

('ears • 
For I remember'd Everard's college fame 
When we were Freshmen: then at my request 
He brought it ;and the poet little urged, 
But with some prelude of disparagement, 



MOETE D\1RTHL'R. 

Read, mouthinu' out his hollow oes and aes, 
Deep-chested niusic, and to this result. 



MORTE D'ARTHUR. 

So all day long the noise of battle roH'd 
Among tiie mountains by the winter sea ; 
Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 
Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord, 
King Arthur: then, because his wound was 

(deep, 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the held, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
„The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellow'ship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a 

(sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think 

(that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly 

(deeds. 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more — but let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help 1 cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride : for thou rememberest 

(how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arn 
Rose up from out the bosom of tlie lake,. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
Holding the sword —and how I row'd across 
And took it, and have worn it, like a king : 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
And llinghim far into the middle mere; 
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring 

(me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
„It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
Yet I thj liest will all perform at full, 



MORTE B' ARTHUR. 



Watch what i see, and lightly bring thee 
(word.'' 

So saying, from the riiin'd shrine he stept 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind 

(sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, step- 

(ping down 
By zig-zag xjaths, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he foi-th the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightenina: the skirts of a long cloud, ran 

(forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the 

(hilt : 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond 

(sparks. 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
In act to throw : but 'at the last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibur couceal'd 
There in the many-knotted waterflags. 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow" to the wounded 
(King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
,/Hast thou perform'd my mission which 1 

(gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen : or what hast 
(heard?'' 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
-,1 heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag.'' 
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and 

(pale : 
-/Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy 

(name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseenr'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand. 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yiit now I charge thee, quickly go again 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bad thee, w^atch, and lightly bring me 
(word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere tne second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere; 
Counting the dewy pebbles, lix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt^. 



How curiously and strangely chased, he 

(smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud. 

,,And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many 

(men. 
What good should follow" this, if this were 

(done ? 
What harm, undone ? deep harm to disol^ey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were U well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he 

(does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumours of a doubt? but Avere this kept. 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty 

(kings. 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Mne years' she wrought it, sitting: in the 

(deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
So might some old man speak in the after- 

(time 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But novv" much honour and much fame were 

(lost." 
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit. 
And hid Excalibur the second time. 
And so strode back slow to the wounded 

(King. 
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
,/What is it thou hast seen? or what hast 

(heard?'' 

And answ"er made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
vl heard the water lapping on the crag, 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds,'' 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in 
(wrath : 
,7 Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted '. Woe is me '. 
Authority forgets a dying king. 
Laid widow'dof the power in his eye 
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou 

(art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 
In whom should meet the offices of all ; 
Tliou wouldst betray me for the precious 

(hilt ; 



44 



MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



Either from lust of g:old, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
And the third time may prosper, get thee 

(hence: 
But, if thou spare to tiing Excalibur, 
1 will arise and slay thee with my hands." 
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping' down the ridges lightly, 

(phmged 
Among the bulrush-heds, and clutch'dtlie 

(sword, 
And strongly wlieel'd and threw it. The 

(great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the 

(moon, 
And flashing round and round, and wliirl d 

(in an arch, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur : 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, Avonderful, 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd 

(him 
Three times,and drew him under in the mere. 
And lightly vvent the other to the King. 
Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker 
(breath : 
„?s^ow see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or 

(seen?" 
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
„Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the 

(gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
^'or shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
^'ot tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle as vonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling 

(him ; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him l)y the liilt, and brandish'd 

(liini 
Three times, and drew him under in the 
(mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breath- 
(inghard: 
„My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were 

(gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my 
(weight. 



And bear me to the margin ; yet 1 fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 
So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsef ullv regarded thro' his tears, 
And would 'have spoken, but he found not 

(words. 
Then took with care, and kneeling on one 

(knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid 

(hands, 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 
But, as he walk'd. King Arthur, panted 
(hard. 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the 

(King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear. 

(„ Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to 

(ridcje, 
Clothe^d with his breath, and looking, as he 

fwalk'd. 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
Haheard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove himhke a 

(goad. 
Drv clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black Cliff clang'd round him, as 

(he based 
His feet on juts af slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smit ten with the dint of armed heels- 
^nd on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 
Then saw they how there hove a dusky 
(barge. 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them : and descending they were 

That all the decks were dense with stately 

(forms 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream— 

(by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold— ano 

(from them rose 
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no on 
I (comes, I 



3I0RTE D'ARTHVR, 



45 



Orhath conie,since the making of the world. 
Then niurraur'd Arthur, ,,Place me in tlie 
(barge." 
And to the barge they came. There those 

(three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, 

(and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed 

(his hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining 

(loud. 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was 

(white 
And colourless., and like the wither'dmoon 
Smothe by the fresh beam of the springing 

(east ; 
xind all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with 

(drops 
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were parch'd 

(with dust ; 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed 

(his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 
IS^ot like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 
From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot,and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

Then loudly crifed the bold Sir Bedivere, 
„Ah ! my lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead. 
When every mornin g brought a noble chan ce, 
And every chance brought out a noble 

(knight. 
Such times have been not since the light 

(that led 
, The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissol- 

(ved 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless. 
And the days^darken round me, and the 

(years. 
Among new men,strange faces,other minds." 
And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: 
■/The old order changeth, yielding place to 

(new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways. 



Lest one good custom should corrupt the 

(world. 
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me ? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have 

(done 
MayHe within himself make pure! but thou, 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought 

(by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let 

(thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If,knowingGod,they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call 

(them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet ofGod. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go — 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
To the island-valley of xivilion • 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard- 

(lawns 
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer 

(sea 
Where I will heal meof my grievouswound." 
So said he,and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink,like some f uU-breast- 

(ed swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the 

(flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood SirBediv^^re 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of 

(dawn. 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 

Hese endedHall,and our last light,that long 
Had wink'd and treaten'd darkness, flared 

(and fell : 
At which the Parson, sent to sleep with 

(sound. 
And waked with silence, grunted ,, Good 1" 

(but we 
Sat rapt: it was thetone with whichhe read- 
Perhaps some modern touches here and there 
Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness- 
Or else we loved theman,and prized his work; 
1 know not : but we sitting, as I said, 



4G 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER OR THE PICTURES. 



The cock crew loud ; as at that time of year 
The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn -. 
ThenFrancis,mutteriug, like a man ill-used, 
„ There now — that's nothing !'^ drew a little 

Oiack, 
And drove Jas heel into the smoulder'd log, 
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: 
And so to bed : where yet in sleep I seem'd 
To sail with Arthur under looming shores, 
Point after point ; till on to dawn, when 

(dreams 
Begin to feel tlie truth and stir of day, 
To me,methought,wlio waited with a crowd, 
There came a bark that, blowing forward, 

(bore 
King Arthur, like a modern gentleman 
Of stateliest port : and all the people cried, 
,;Arthur is come again : he cannot die.'' 
Then those that stood upon the hills behind 
Repeated — ,/Come again, and thrice as fair;" 
And, further inland, voices echoed — ,/Come 
"With all good things, and war shall be no 

Tmore." 
At this a hundred bells began to peal. 
That with the sound I woke, and heard in- 

(deed 
The clear cliurch-bells ring in the Christmas 

(morn. 

THE GARDENEU'S DAUGHTER; 

OK, THE PICTUEES. 

This morning is the morning of the day, 
When I and Eustace from the city went 
To see the Gardener's Daughter :* I and he. 
Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete 
Portion'd in halves betAveen us,that wegrew 
The fable of the city where we dwelt. 

My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; 
So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. 
He, by some laAV that holds in love, and 

(draws 
The greater to the lesser, long desired 
A certain miracle of symmetry, 
A miniature of loveliness, all grace 
Summ'd up and closed in little; — Juliet, she 
So light of foot, so light of spirit — oh, she 
To me myself, for some three careless moons. 
The summer pilot of an empty heart 
Unto thesliores of nothing! Know you not 
Such touches are but embassies of love. 
To tamper with the feelings , ere he found 
Empire for life? but Eastace painted her, 
And said to me , she sitting with us then , 
'■ Wlien will i/ou paint I ike this? and I replied, 



(My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) 
,/'Tis not your work,but Love's unperceived, 
A more ideal Artist he than all , 
Came, drew your pencil from you, made 

(those eyes 
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair 
More black tlian ashbuds in the front of 

(March." 
And Juliet answer'd laughing, „Go and see 
The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after 

(that. 
You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece. 
And up we rose , and on the spur we went. 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the gal-den that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster "clock ; 
Although between it and the garden lies ' 
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad 

(stream, 
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on. 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
Crown'd with the minster-towers. " , 

The fields between 
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd 

(kiue, 
x'^.nd all about the large lime feathers low, 
The lime a summer home of murmurous 

(wings 

In that still place she, hoarded in herself. 
Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived 
Her fame fromlip tolip. Whohad not heard 
Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? \\Tiere 

(was he. 
So blunt in memory, so old at heart. 
At such a distance from his youth in grief. 
That, having seen, forgot? The common 

(mouth. 
So gross to express delight, in praise of her 
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
And Beauty such a mistress of the world. 

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, 
Would play with flying forms and images. 
Yet this is also true, that, long before 
I look'd upon her : when I heard her name 
My heart was like a prophet to my heart, 
And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes 
That sought to sow themselves like winged 

(seeds, 
Born out of everything I heard and saw , 
Elutter'd abcAit my senses and my soul : 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 



47 



Aud vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
To one that travels quickly, made the air 
Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
That verged upon them, sweeter than the 

(dream 
Dream'd by a happy man,when the darkEast, 
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. 
And sure this orbit of the memory folds 
I'or ever in itself the day we went 
To see her. All the land in flowery squares, 
Beneath a broad and equal- blowing wind. 
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large 

(cloud 
Drew downward: but all else of Heaven 

(was pure 
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, 
Aud May with me from head to heel. And 

(now 
As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were 
The hour just iiown, that morn with all its 

(sound, 
(For tliose old Mays had thrice the life of 

(these) 
Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze 
And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway , 

(stood, 
Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, 
xind lowing to his fellows. From the -woods 
Came voices of the well-contented doves. 
The lark could scarce get outhis notes for 

(joy, 
But shook his song together as he near'd 
His happy home, the ground . To left and 

(right, 
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills ; 
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; 
The redcap whistled ; and the nightingale 
Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. 

AndEustace turn'd,and smiling said to me, 
;,Hear how the bushes echo ! by my life. 
These birds have joyful thoughts. Think 

(you they sing 
Like poets, from the vanity of song? 
Or have they any sense of why they sing? 
And would they praise the heavens for what 

(they have ? 
Aud I made answer. „Were there nothing else 
For which to praise the heavens but only 

(love. 

That onlylove were causeenoughfor praise.'' 

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my 

(thought. 

And on we went; but ereanhourhadpass'd, 

Wereach'd a meadoAv slanting to theNorthj 



Down which a well-worn pathway courted 

(us 
To one green wicket in a privet hedge ; 
This, yielding, gave into a grassy w^alk 
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; 
xind one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, 

(blew 
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. 
The garden stretches southward. In the 

(midst 
L cedar spread his dark-green layers of 

(shade. 
The garden-glasses shone, aud momently 
The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights. 
,/Eustace," I said, „this wonder keeps the 

(house." 
He nodded, but a moment afterwards 
He cried, ,/Look I look!" Before he ceased I 

(turn'd, 
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. 
For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
That, flowering high, the last night's gale 

(had caught, 
xind blown across the walk. One arm aloft — 
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the 



Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
Pour'don one side: the shadow of the flowers 
Stole all the golden gloss, aud, wavering 
Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — 
x\h, happy shade — and still went wavering 

(down, ' 
But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have 

(danced 
The greensward into greener circles, dipt, 
xind mix'd with shadows of the common 

(ground ! 
But the full day dwelt onher brows, and 

(sunn'd 
Fler violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom, 
And doubled his own warmth against her 

(lips, 
xiud on the bounteous wave ot such a breast 
As never pencil drew. Flalf light, half shade 
She stood.a sight to make an old man young. 
So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose 
In roses, mingled with her fragant toil. 
jS'or heard us come, nor from her tendance 

(turn'd 
Into the world without ; till close at hand, 
xind almost ere I knew mine own intent, 
This murmer broke the stillness cf that air 
Which brooded round about her^ 



4S 



THE GJRBENEWS DAUGHTER. 



"A\\, one rose, 
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd, 
Were worth a Imndred kisses press'd on lips 
Less exquisite than tliine." 

She look'd : but all 
Suffused with l)lushes — neither self-posses'd 
Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, 
Divided in a graceful quiet — paused. 
And dropt the branch she held, and turning, 

(wound 
Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'dher lips 
For some sweet answer, tho' no answer 

(came, 
Is ot yet refused the rose, but granted it. 
And moved away, and left me, statue-like, 
In act to render thanks. 

I, that w^hole day. 
Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there' 
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star 
Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. 
So home Ave went, and all the livelong way 
With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. 
„Now," said he, „will you climb the top of 

(Art. 
You cannot fail but work in hues to dim 
The Titianic Flora. Will you match 
My Juliet? you, not you,— the Master,Love, 
A more ideal Artist he than all." 
So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, 
Reading her perfect features in the gloom, 
Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er, 
And shaping faithful record of the glance 
That graced the giving— such a noise of life 
Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice 
Call'd to me from the years to come, and 

(such 
A length of brighthorizon rinim'd the dark. 
And all that night I heard the watchman 

(peal 
The sliding season : all that night I heard 
The heavy clocks knoUing the drowsy hours. 
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good. 
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
Distilling odours on me as they went 
To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 
Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all. 
Made this night thus. Henceforward squall 

(nor storm 
Could keep me from that Eden where she 

(dwelt. 
Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a Dutch 

(love 
For tulips ; then for roses, moss or musk. 
To grace my city-rooms^ or fruits and cream 



Served in the weeping elm ; and more and 

(more 
A word could bring the colour to my cheek: 
A thought would fill my eyes with happy 

(dew ; 
Love trebled life within me, and with each 
The year increased. 

The daughters of the year, 
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd: 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower - 
Danced into light, and died into the shade; 
And each in passing touch'd with some new 

(grace 
Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day, 
Like one that never can be w^holly known, 
Her beauty grew ; till Autumn brought an 

(hour 
For Eustace, wiien I heard his deep .,1 will," ; 
Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold r 
From thence thro' all the worlds: but T 

(rose up (i 

Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes 
Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd 
The wicket-gate, and found her standing 

(there. 

There sat we down upon a garden mound, 
Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third. 
Between us, in the circle of his arms 
EnAVOund us both ; and over many a range 
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, 
•Across a hazy glimruer of the west, 
Reveal'd their shining Avindows, from them 

(clash'd 
The bells; we listen'd, with the time we 

(play'd; 
We spoke of other things; we coursed about 
The subject most at heart, more near and 

(near. 
Likes doves about a dovecote, wheeling 

(round 
The central Avish, until Ave settled there. 
Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, 
Requiring, tho' I knew it Avas mine own, 
Yet for the pleasure that 1 rook to hear. 
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, 
A Avoman's heart, the heart of her I loved ; 
And in that time and place she answer'd me, 
And in the compass of three little Avords, 
More musical than ever came in one, 
^he silver fragments of a broken voice, 
Made me most happy,faltering, „I am thine.'' 

Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say 
That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 
By its own energy fulfill'd itself. 



BORA, 



Merged in completion ? Would you learn at 

(full 
How passion rose thro' circumstantial 

(grades 
[Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed 
i I had not staid so long to tell you all, 
.But Avhile I mused came Memory with sad 
I (eyes, 

Holding the folded annals of my youth ; 
And while I mused, Love with knit brows 

(went by, 
And with a liying finger swept my lips, 
I And spake, ,/Be wise : not easily forgiven 
i Are those, w^ho setting wide the doors, that 

(bar 
The secret bridal chambers of the heart. 
Let in the day" Here, then, my words have 

(end. 

Yet might I tell of meetings, of fare wells— 
Of that which came between, more SAveet 

(than each. 
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves 
That tremble round a nightingale — in sighs 
Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance, 
Stolefromher sister Sorrow. Might I not tell 
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, 
And vows, where there was never need of 

(vows, 
And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 
Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above 
The heavens between their fairy lieeces pale 
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting 

(stars ; 
Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, 
Spread the light haze along the river-shores. 
And in the hollows ; or as once we met 
Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain 
Night slid down one long stream of sighing 

(wind. 
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. 

But this whole hour your eyes have been 
(intent 
On that veil'd picture — veil'd, for what it 

(holds 
May not be dwelt on by the common day. 
This pre)ud(j has prepared thee, liaise thy 

(soul: 
Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the 

(time 
Is come to raise the veil. 

Behold her there. 
As I beheld her ere she knew my heart. 
My first, last love; the idol of my youth. 
The darling of my manhood, and, alas! 



IS'ow the most blessed memory of mine age, 

DORA. 
With farmer Allan at the farm abode 
"William and Dora. William was his son. 
And she his niece. He often look'd at them, 
And often thought, „I'll make them man 

(and wife." 
Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all. 
And yearn'd towards William; but the 

(youth, because 
He had been always with her in the house, 
Thought not of Dora. 

Then there came a day 
When Allan call'd his son, and said, -,My son: 
I married late, but I Avould wish to see 
My grandchild on my knees before I die: 
And I have set my heart upon a match. 
Now therefore look to Dora ; she is well 
To look to ; thrifty too beyond her age. 
She is my brother's daughter: he and I 
Had once hard words,and parted,and he died 
In foreign lands ; but for his sake I bred 
His daughter Dora : take her for your wife ; 
For I have wish'd this marriage, night and. 

(day. 
For many years," But "William answer'd 

(short : 
„I cannot marry Dora ; by my life, 
I will not marry Dora." Then the old man 
Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and 

(said: 
„ You will not, boy', you dare to answer thus! 
But in my time a father's word was law, 
xind so it shall be now for me. Look to it ; 
Consider, William ; take a month to think, 
And let me have an answer to my wish; 
Or, by the Lord that made nie,you shall pack, 
And never more darken my doors again." 
But William answer'd madly ; bit his lips. 
And broke away. The more he look'd at her 
The less he liked her; and his ways were 

(harsh ; 
But Dora bore them meekly. Then before. 
The month was out he left his father's 

(house, 
xind hired himself to work within the fields; 
And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and 

(wed 
x\ labourer's daughter, Mary Morrison, 

Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan 

(call'd 
His niece and said: „My girl, 1 love you well; 
But if you speak witli him that was my son, 



BORA. 



Or change a word with her he calls his wife, 
My home is none of yours. My will is law." 
And Dora promised, being meek. She 

(thought, 
.,lt cannot be: my uncle's mind willchange!'- 
And days went on, and therewas born a boy 
To AVilliam; then distresses came ou him: 
And day by day he pass'd his father's gate, 
Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not. 
But Dora stored what little she could save, 
And sent it them by stealth, nor did they 

(know 
AVho sent it ; till at last a fev^er seized 
On William, and in harvest time he died. 

Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat 
And look'd with tears upon her boy, and 

(thought 
Hard things of Dora, Dora came and said : 

r,I have obey'd my uncle until now. 
And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me 
This evil came on William at the first. 
But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone, 
And for your sake, the woman that he chose, 
And for this orphan, I am come to you : 
You know there has not been for these live 

(years 
So full a harvest : let me take the boy. 
And I will set him in my uncle's eye 
Among the wheat: that when his heart is 

(glad 
Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, 
And bless him for the sake of him that's 

(gone." 
And Dora took the child, and went her w^ay 
Across the Avheat, and sat upon a mound 
That was unsown,where many poppies grew. 
i'ar oft" the farmer came into the Held 
And spied licr not ;. for none of all his men 
Dare tell him Dora Avaited with the child ; 
And Dora would have risen and gone to him, 
But lier heart fail'd her: and the reapers 

(reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 
But when the morrow came, she rose and 

(took 
The child once more, and sat upon the 

(mound; 
And made a Utile wreath of all the flowers 
That grew about, and tied it round his hat 
To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. 
Then when the farmer pass'd into the field 
He spied her, and he left his men at work. 
And came and said: ,y Where were you yes-. 

(terdayl' 



Whose child is that? What are you doing 

(here?" 
So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, 
And answer'd softly: -/This is William's 

(child!" 
,,And did I not," said Allan, „did I not 
Porbid you Dora?" Dora said again : 
-,Do w ith me as you will, but take the child 
And bless him for the sake of him that's 

(gone!" 
And Allan said, ,,I see it is a trick 
Got up betwixt you and the woman there. 
I must be taught my duty, and by you ! 
You knew my word was law, and yet you 

(dared 
To slight it. Well— for I will take tlie boy ; 
But go you hence, and never see me more." 
So salving, he took the boy, that cried aloud 
And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers 

(fell 
At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands. 
And the boy's cry came to her from the field. 
More and more distant. She bow'd down 

ilier head, 
Remembering the day when first she came, 
And all the things that had been. She bow'd 

i;down 
And wept in secret; and the reapers reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and al the land was dark. 
Then Dora went to Mary's bouse, and stood 
Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy 
Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise 
To God, that help'd her in her widowhood. 
And i3ora said, ,/My uncle took the boy; 
But, Mary, let me five and Avork Avith you : 
He says that he will never see me more." 
Then ansAver'd Mary, ,;This shall never be. 
That thou shouldst take my trouble onthy- 

(self : 
And, noAV I tliink, he shall not have the boy, 
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight 
His mother ; therefore thou and I Avill go, 
And I Avill have my boy, and bring him home; 
And 1 Avill beg of hinrtotake thee back : 
But if he Avilfnot take thee back again. 
Then thou and I Avill live Avithiu one house. 
And wsrk for William's child, until he groAN's, 
Of age to help us." 

So the Avomen kiss'd 
Each other, and set out, and reach'd the 

(farm. 
The door was off the latch : they peep'd, and 

(saw 
The boy set up betwixt his grands ire's knees. 



AUBLET COURT 



51 



Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, 
And clapt him on the hands and on the 

(cheeks, 
Like one that loved him: and the lad 

(stretch'd out 
And babbled for the golden seal, that hung 
FromAllan's watch,and sparkled by the fire. 
Thentheycamein : but when the boy beheld 
His mother, he cried out to come to her-. 
And Allan set him down, and Mary said: 

,,,0 Father! — if you let me call you so— 
I never came a-beggino; for myself, 
Or William, or this child; but now I come 
For Dora: take her back; she loves you well. 

Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
With all men ; for I ask'd him, and he said, 
He could not ever rue his marrying me — 

1 had been a patient wife: but. Sir, he said 
That he was wrong to cross his father thus : 
'God bless him '.'he said, 'and may he never 

(know 
The troubles T have gone thro'!' Then he 

(turn'd 
His face and pass'd — unhappy that I am ! 
But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
Will make him hard, and he will learn to 

(slight 
His father's memory ; and take Dora back, 
And let all this be as it was before." 

So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
By Mary. There was silence in the room; 
And all at once the old man burst in sobs: — 
„1 have been to blame — to blame. I have 

(kiird m} son 
I have kiird him — but I loved him — my 

(dear son. 
MayGodforgive me ! — I have been to blame. 
Kiss me, my children." 

Then they clung about 
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many 

(times. 
And all the man was broken with remorse ; 
And all his love came back a hundred fold ; 
And for three hours he sobb'd o'erWilliam's 

(child, 
Thinking of William. 

So tliose four abode 
Within one house together ; and as years 
Went forsvard, Mary took another mate; 
But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 

AUDLEY COUKT. 
The Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not 
(a room 



For love or money. Let us picnic tliere 
At Audley Court." 

I spoke, while Audley feast 
Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow 

(quay, 
To Francis, with a basket on his arm, • 
To Francis just alighted from the boat, 
And breathing of the sea. „With all my 

(heart," 
Said Francis. Then we shoulder'd tliro' the 

(swarm. 
And rounded by the stillness of the beach 
To where the bay runs up its latest horn. 

We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd 
The fiat red granite; so by many a sweep 
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we 

(reach'd 
The griffin-guarded gates,andpass'd thro' all 
Thepillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores, 
And cross'd the garden to the gardener's 

(lodge. 
With all its casements bedded, and its walls 
And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. 

There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid 
A damask napkin wrought with horse and 

(hound, 
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, 
And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly made. 
Where quail and pigeon,lark and leveret lay, 
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks' 
Imbedded and injellied; last,Vith these, 
A Hask of cider from his father's vats. 
Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat 
And talk'd old matters over; who was dead. 
Who married, who was like to be, and how 
The races went, and who would rent the hall: 
Then toucli'd upon the game, how scarce it 

(was 
This season ; glancing thence, discuss'd the 

(farm, 
The fourfield system, and the price of gra in ; 
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we 

(split. 
And came again together on the king 
With heated faces; till helaugh'd aloud ; 
And,while the blackbird on the pippin hung 
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and 

(sang — 

„0h! who would fight and march and 
(countermarch, 
Be shot tor si\-pence in a battle-field. 
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench 
Where no one knows? but let me live my life. 
„0h! who would cast and balance at a "desk, 



WALKING TO THE MAIL. 



Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd 

(stool, 
Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints 
Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. 

„"V\'ho'd serve the state? for if I carved my 

(name 

Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, 

I might as well have traced it in the sands • 

The sea wastes all: hut let me live my life. 

„0h ! who would love ? I woo'd a woman 
(once. 
But she was sharper than an eastern wind, 
And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn 
Turns from the sea; but let me live my life." 
He sang his song, and I replied with mine: 
I found it in a volume, all of songs, 
Kuock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's 

(pride, 
His books — the more the pity, so I said — 
Came to the hammer here in March — and 

(this — 
I set the words, and added names I knew. 
„ Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, si eep, and dream of me: 
Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm. 
And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. 

,,Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm ; 
Emilia, fairer than all else that is. 
Eor thou art fairer than all else that is. 

,/ Sleep, breathing health and peace upon 
(her breast: 
Sleep, breathino; love and trust against her 

(lip: 
I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. 

1,1 go, but I return: I would I were 
The pilot of the darkness and the dream. 
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.'' 

So sang we each to either, Erancis Hale, 
The farmer's son, who lived across the bay. 
My friend; and T, that having wherewithaX 
And in the fallow leisure of my life 
A rolling stone of here and everywhere. 
Did what I would; but ere the night we rose 
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, 

(just 
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf 
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd 
The limit of the hills; and as we sank 
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay, 
The town was hush'd beneath us:lower down 
The bay was oily calm ; the harbour-buoy. 
Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm. 

With one green sparkle ever and anon 

Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart. 



WALKING TO THE MAIL. 

John. I 'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the 
meadows look 
Above the river, and, but a month ago, 
The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. 
Is yon plantation where this byway joins. 
The turnpike ? 

James. Yes. 

.Johi. And when does this come by ? 

James. The mail ? At one o'clock, 

John. What is it now? 

James. A quarter to. 

.John. Whose house is that I see? 

Ko, not the County Member's with the vane: 
Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half 
A score of gables 

James. That ? Sir Edward Head's : 

But he's abroad : the place is to be sold. 

John. 0, his He was not broken. 

.James. No, sir. he, 

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood 
That veil'd the world with jaundice, hidhis 

(face 
Erom all men, and commercing with him- 

(self. 
He lost the sense that handles daily life — 
That keeps us all in order more or less — 
And sick of home went overseas for change. 

John. And whither? 

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and 
(there. 
But let him go ; his devil goes with him, 
xAs well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. 

John. What's that ? 

James. You saw the man — on Monday, 
(was it? — 
There by the humpback'd willow; half 

(stands up 
And bristles, half has fall'n and made a 

(bridge ; 
And there he caught the younker tickling 

(trout — 
Caught in Hagrante — what's the Latin 

(word ? 
Dilecto : but his house, for so they say, 
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook 
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at 

(doors. 
And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd: 
The farmer vext packsup his beds and chairs, 
And all his household stuif; and with his boy 
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, 
Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him; 

(vWhat ! 



EDWIN MORRIS. 



53 



You're flitting !" ,/Yes, we're flitting," says 

ahe ghost 
(For they had pack'd the thing among the 

(beds,) 
,,0h well,'' says he, „you flitting witli us 

(^too — 
Jack, turn the horses' heads and liome 
(again.'' 

John.Heleft his wife behind; for so 1 heard. 

James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: 

A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. 

John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years 

(back — 

'Tis now at least ten years — and then she 

(was — 
You could not light upon a sweeter thing : 
A body slight and round, and like a pear 
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot 
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin 
! As clean and white as privet when it flowers. 
I James. Ay, ay, the l)lossom fades, and 
(they that loved 
At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. 
I She was the daughter of a cottager, 
I Out of her sphere. AVhat betwixt shame and 
! (pride, 
i 'New things and old, himself and her, she 

(sour'd 
i To what she is : a nature never kind ! 
Like men, like manners: like breeds like, 

(they say. 
Kind nature is the best: those manners next 
That fit us like a nature second-hand ; 
Which are indeed the manners of the great. 
Jok7i. But I had heard it was this bill that 
(past. 
And fear of change at home, that drove him 
(hence. 

I James. That was the last drop in the cup 
(of gall. 
I once was near him, when hisbailiff brought 
, A Chartist pike. You should have seen him 
I (wince 

I As from a venomous thing: he thought him- 
(self 
A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry 
Should break his sleep by night, aad his 

(nice eyes 
Should see the raw mechanic's bloody 

(thumbs 
Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you 

(know 
That these two parties still divide the 
1 (world — 



Of those that want, and those that have: 

(and still 
The same old sore breaks out from age to age 
With much the same result. Now t myself, 
A Tory to the quick, was as a boy 
Destructive, when 1 had not what I would. 
I was at school — a college in the South: 
There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit, 
H is liens, liis eggs ; but there was law for vs ; 
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, 
Wicti meditative grunts of much content. 
Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and 

(mud 
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower 
From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew 

(stair 
With hand and rope we haled the groanir.g 

(sow, 
And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd. 
Large range of prospect had the mother sow, 
And but for daily loss of one she loved. 
As oneby one we took them — but for this — 
As never sow was higher in this world — 
Might have l)een happy: but what lot is pure? 
We took them all, till she was left alone 
Upon her tower, the jNiobe of swine 
And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. 

Jo/z/?. They found you out? 

James. Not tliey. 

John . Well — after all — 

What know we of the secret of a man ? 
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who 

(are sound. 
That we should mimic this raw fool the 

(world, 
Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or 

(whites. 
As ruthless as a baby with a worm, 
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows 
To Pity — more from ignorance than will. 

But put your best foot forward, or I fear 
That we shall miss the mail: and here it 

(comes 
With five at top : as quaint a four-in-hand 
As you shall see — three pyebalds and a roan . 

EDWIN MORRIS. 

OE, THE LAKE. 

ME, my pleasant rambles l)y the lake. 
My sweet", wild, fresh three quarters of a , 

(year, 
My one Oasis in the dust and drouth 
Of citY life ! I was a sketcher then: 



54 



EDWIN MORRIS. 



See here, my doing;; curves of mountain, 

(bridge, 
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built 
"Wben men knew how to build, upon a rock 
AVitli turrets licnen-gilded like a rock -. 
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, 
New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires, 
Here lived tlie Hills — a Tudor-chimnied 

(bulk 
Of mellow brickwork on a isle of bowers. 

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake 
With Edwin Morris and witli Edward Bull 
The curate; he was fatter than his cure. 
But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names, 
Longlearned names of agaric, moss and fern, 
"Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, 
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to 

(swim, 
Wlio read me rhymes elaborately good, 
His own — call'd him Crichton, for he 

(seem'd 
All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail. 

And once I ask'd him of his early life, 
And his first passion ; and lie answer'd me : 
And well his words became him : was he not 
A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence 
Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke. 

„My love for IS^ature is as old as I : 

But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that. 

And three rich sennights inore, my love for 

(her. 
Of different ages, like twin- sisters grew, 
Twin-sisters differently ])eautiful. 
To some full music rose and sank the sun, 
And some full music seem'd to move and 

(change 
With all the varied changes of the dark, 
And either twilight and the day between ; 
For daily hope fulfiU'd, to rise again 
Bevolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet 
To walk, to sit, to sleep,to wake,to breathe." 

Or this or something like to this he spoke. 
Then said the fat-faced curateEdwardBull, 
,/I take it, God made the woman for the man. 
And for the good and increase of the world. 
A pretty face is well, and this is well, 
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, 
And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways 
Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed 
Worn threadbure. Man is made of solid stuff. 
I say, God made the woman for the man. 



And for the good and increase of the world/' 

„Parson," said I, ,yyou pitch the pipe too low 
But I have sudden touches; and can run 
My faith beyond my practice into his: 
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill, 
I do not hear the bells upon my cap, 
I scarce have other music : yet say on. 
What should one give to light on such a 

(dream?'' 
1 ask'd him half-sardonically. 

„Give? 
Give all thou art, he answer'd, and a light 
Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek : 
,/I would have hid her needle in my heart, 
To save her little finger from a scratch 
No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear 
Her lightest breaths: her least remark was 

(worth 
The experience of the wise. I went and came; 
Her voice fled always thro' the summer land 
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days ! 
The flower of each, those moments when 

(we met, 
The crown of all, we met to part no more. 

Were not his words delicious, I a beast 
To take them as I did ? but something jarr'd; 
AVhether he spoke too largely; that there 

(seem'd i 

A touch of something false, some self-con- i 

(ceit, ' i 

Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was, 
He scarcely hit my humour, and 1 said : 

„Eriend Edwin, do not think yourself alone I 
Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, ! 

As in the Latin song I learnt at school, 
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you risht and 

(left? 
But you can talk : yours is a kindly vein : 
I have, I think, — Heaven knows — as much 

(within; 
Have, or should have, but for a thought or 

(two, 
That like a purple beech among the greens 
Looks out of place: 'tis from no want in her: 
It is my shyness, or my self-distrust. 
Or something of a wayward modern mind 
Dissecting passion. Time will set me right." 
So spoke i knowing not the things that were. 
Thrn said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: 
.,God made the woman for the use of man, 
And for the Sfood and increase of the world." 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES 



And I and Edwin laugli'd: and now we 

(paused 
About the windings of the marge to hear 
The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms 
And alders, garden-isles ; and now we left 
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran 
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake. 
Delighted with the freshness and the sound. 

But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, 
My suit had wither'd nipt to death by him 
That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk, 
The reutroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 
'Tis true, we met ; one hour 1 had, no more : 
She sent a note, the seal an JEUe rous svit, 
The close ,/Your Letty, only yours;" and this 
Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of 

(morn 
Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran 
My craft aground, and heard with beating 

(heart 
The Sweet- Gale rustle round the shelving 

(keel; 
And out I stept, and up I crept : she moved, 
Like Proserpine inEnua, gathering tiowers : 
Then low and sweet I whistled thrice: and, 

(she, 
She tun'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, 

(I breathed 
In some ncAV planet : a silent cousin stole 
Upon us and departed: „Leave," she cried, 
,,0 leave me ! " ,/^'ever, dearest, never : here 
I brave the worst :" and while we stood like 

(fools 
Embracing , all at once a score of pugs 
And poodles yeirdwithin,and out they came 
Trustees and Aunts andl'ncles.;„Ayhat with 

(him! 
Go" (shrill'd the cotton-spinning chorus) ; 

vhim!" 
I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen- 

(,,Him! 
Again with hands of wild rejection „Go ! - 
Girl,getyouin I She went - andin one month 
They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, 
To lands in Kent and messuages in York, 
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile 
And educated whisker. But for me. 
They set an ancient creditor to Avork : 
It seems I broke a close with force and arms: 
There came a mystic token from the king 
To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy ! 
I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd : 
Her taper glimmer'd in the lake' below ; 



I turn'd once more, close-buttou'd to the 

(storm: 
So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen 
Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to 

(hear. 

]S'or cared to hear V perhaps : yet long ago 
I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed. 
It may be, for her own dear sake but this, 
She seems a part of those fresh days to me; 
For in the dust and drouth of London life 
She moves among my visions of the lake, 
AVhile the prime swallow dips his wing, or 

(then 
AYhile the gold-lily blows, and overhead 
The light cloud smoulders on the summer 

(crag. 

ST. SIMEOX STYLITES. 
Altho' I be the basest of mankind, 
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of 

(sin, 
L'nfit for earth, unfit for heaven , scarce meet 
For troops of devils, iuad with blasphemy 
1 will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
Of saintdom, and to clamour,niourn and sob, 
Battering the gates of heaven with storms 

(of prayer. 
Have mercy. Lord, and take away my sin, 

Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, 
This not be all in vain, that thrice tenyears, 
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, 
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold. 
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes 

(and cramps, 
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, 
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne 
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and 

(sleet, and snow; 
And I had hoped that ere this period closed 
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy 

(rest. 
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs 
The meed of saints, the white robe and the 

(palm. 

take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, 
]N'ot whisper, any murmur of complaint. 
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold, to this, were 

(still 
Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, 
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that 

(crush'd 
My spirit flat before tliee. 

Lord, Lord, 
TJiou knowest Ibore tliis l?etter at the first., 



56 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 



For I was strong: and hale of body then; 
And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt 

(away, 
Would chatter with the cold, and all my 

(beard 
Was tag^'d with icy fringes in the moon, 
1 drown'd the whoopings of the owl with 

(sound 
Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes 

(saw 
An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. 
Now am I feeble grown-, my end draws nigh; 
I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf 1 am, 
So that 1 scarce can hear the people hum 
About the column's base, and almost blind. 
And scarce can recognise the fields I know ; 
And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; 
Yet ceass I not to clamour and to cry, 
While my stiff spine can hold my weary head. 
Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the 

(stone, 
Have mercy, mercy: takeaway my sin, 

Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, 
Who may be saved? who is it may be saved ? 
Who may be made a saint, if I fail here ? 
Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I. 
For did not all thy martyrs die one death ? 
For either they were stoned, or crucified, 
Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn 
In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here 
To day, and whole years long, a life of death. 
Bear Avitness , if I could have found a way 
(And lieedfully I sifted all my thought) 
More slowly-painful to subdue this home 
Of sin, my fiesh, which I despise and hate, 
I had not stinted practice, my God. 

For not alone this pilar-punishment, 
Not this alone I bore : but while I lived 
In the white convent down the valley there, 
For many weeks about my loins I wore 
The rope that haled the buckets from the 

(well. 
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; 
And spake not of it to a single soul, 
Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, 
Eetray'd my secret penance, so that all 
My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than 

(this 
I bore, whereof, God, thou knowest all. 

Three winters, tliat my soul might grow 
(to thee, 
1 lived up there on yonder mountain side. 
My right leg chain'd into tlie crag, 1 lay 
Pfittt -in a roo/less close of rao;ged stones; 



Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, 

(and twice 
Black'd with thy branding tliunder, and 

(sometimes 
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, 
Except the spare chance-gift of those that 

(came 
To touch my body and be heal'd, and live : 
And they say then that I work'd miracles, 
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, 
Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, 

(God, 
Knowest alone whether this was or no. 
Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin. 

Then that I might be more alone with thee. 
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high 
Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; 
And twice three years I crouch'd on one 

(that rose 
Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew 
Twice ten long weary weary years to this, 
That numbers forty cubits from the soil. 

I think that I have borne as much as this — 
Or else I dream — antl for so long a time. 
If I may measure time by yon slow light, 
And this high dial,which my sorrow crowns- 
So much — even so. 

And yet I know not well, 
For th at the evil ones come here, and say, 
,,Fall down,0 Simeon: thou hast suffer'dlong 
For ages and for ages!" then they prate 
Of penances I cannot have gone thro', 
Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fiill, 
Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies, 
ThatHeaven,andEarth,andTime are choked. 
But yet. 
Bethink thee. Lord, while thou and all the 

(saints 
Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on 

(earth 
House in the shade of comfortable roofs, 
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome 

(food, 
And wear Avarm clothes, and even beasts 

(have stalls, 
I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the 

(light. 
Bow down one thousand and two hundred 

(times, 
To Christ, the VirginMother, and the Saints: 
Or in the night, after a little sleep, 
I wake: the chill stars sparkle ; I am wet 
With drenching dews,or stiff with crackling 

(frosts 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 



57 



I wear an undressed goatskin on my back: 
A grazing iron collar grinds my neck : 
And in my weakj lean arms I lift the cross, 
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die : 

mercy, mercy ! wasli away my sin. 

Lord, thou knowest what a man 1 am; 
A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 
'Tis their own doing ; this is none of mine ; 
i Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, 
; That here come those that worship me r Ha 
I (ha! 

i They think tliat I am somewhat. "V\ hat am I : 
! The 'silly people take me for a saint, 

And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers : 
^ And I, in truth(thou wilt bear witness here) 
Have all in all endured as much, and more 
Than many just and holy men, whose names 
Are register'd and calendar'd for saints. 
Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. 
What is it 1 can have done to merit this r 

1 am a sinner viler than you all. 

It may be I have wrought some miracles. 
And cured some halt and maim'd; but what 

(of that? 
It may be, no one, even among the saints. 
May match his pains with mine; but what 

(of that ? 
Yet do not rise; for you may look on me. 
And in your looking you may kneel to God. 
Speak ! is there any of you halt or maim'd r 
I think you know I have some power with 

(Heaven 
From my long penance: let him speak his 
^ (wish. 

YeSjI can heal him.Power goes forthfrom me. 
They say that they are heal'd. Ah,hark '. they 

(shout 
„St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, 
God reaps a harvest in me. my soul, 
\ God reaps a harvest in tliee. If this be, 
Can 1 work miracles and not be saved? 
This is not told of any. They were saints. 
It cannot be but that I shall be saved ; 
Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, „Behold 

(a saint!" 
And lower voices saint me from above. 
Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis 
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere 

(death 
\ Spreads more and more and more, that God 

(hath now 
Sponged and made blank of crimeful record 

(all 
_ My mortal archives. 



my sons, my sons, 
I, Simeon of the pillar, by'surname* 
Stylites, among men; I Simeon, 
The watcher on the column till the end; 
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; 
I, wliose bald brows in silent hours become 
Unnaturally lioar with rime, do now 
From my high nest of penance here proclaim 
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side 
Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, 
A vessel full of sin ; all hell beneath 
Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve; 
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. 
I smote them with the cross ; they swarm'd 

(again. 
In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my 

(chest : 
They tlapp'd my light out as I read: I saw 
Their faces grow between me and my book ; 
Witli colt-like whinny and with hoggish 

(whine 
They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, 
And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify 
Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with 

(thorns ; 
Sniite,shrink not,spare not. If it maybe, fast 
Whole Lents, and pray. Ihardly, with slow 

(steps. 
With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding 

(pain, 
Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that 

(still 
Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the 

(praise: 
God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit, 
Among the powersand princes of this world. 
To make me an example to mankind. 
Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say 
But that a time may come — yea, even now, 
2sow, now, his footsteps smite the threshold 

(stairs 
Of life — I say, that time is at the doors 
When you may worship me without re- 

(proach; 
For I will leave my relics in your land, 
And you may carve a shrine about my dust, 
And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones. 
When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. 
Whilelspakethen,a sting of shrewdest pain 
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike 

(change, 
In passing, with a grosser film made thick 
These heavy, horny eyes. The end ! the end ! 
Surely the end' W hat's here? a shape,u shade, 



58 



THE TALKING OAK. 



A flash of liglit. Is that the angei there 
That holds a crown ? Come, hlessedhrother, 

(come. 
I know thy glittering face. I waited long: 
My brows are ready. What ! deny it now ? 
Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So 1 clutch it. 

(Christ! 
'Tis gone : 'tis here again ; the crown ! the 

(crown ! 
So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me, 
And from it melt the dews of Paradise, 
Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and 

(frankincense. 
Ah ! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints-. I trust 
That I am whole, and clean, and meet for 

(Heaven. 

Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, 
Among you there, and let him presently 
xlpproach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, 
And climbing up into my airy home, 
Deliver me the blessed sacrament ; 
For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, 
I prophesy that I shall die to-night, 
A quarter'before twelve. 

But thou, Lord, 
Aid all this foolish people ; let them take 
Example, pattern: lead them to thy light. 

THE TALKING OAK. . 
Once more the gate behind me falls; 

Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey- walls, 

That stand within the chace. 
Beyond the lodge the city lies, 

Beneath its drift of smoke ; 
And ah ! with what delighted eyes 

I turn to yonder oak. 
For when my passion first began. 

Ere that, which in me l)urn'd 
Tlie love, that makes me thrice a man. 

Could hope itself returned ; 
To yonder oak within the field 

I spoke without restraint, 
And with a larger faith appeal'd 

Than Papistunto Saint. 
F(jr oft I talk'd witli him apart, 

And told him of my choice, 
Until he plagiarised a heart, 

And answer'd with a voice. 
Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven 

None else could understand; 
I found him garrulously given. 



A babbler in the land. 
But since I heard him make reply 

Is many a weary hour; 
'Twere well to question him, and try 

If yet he keeps the power. 
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, 

Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, 
"Whose topmost branches can discern 

The roofs of Sunmer-place! 
Say thou, whereon I carved her name, 

If ever maid or spouse. 
As fair as my Olivia, came 

To rest beneath thy boughs. — 
,/0 Walter, I have shelter'd here 

"Whatever maiden grace 
The good old Summers, year by year 

Made ripe in Sumner-chace: 
,,01d Summers, when the monk was fat, 

And, issuing shorn and sleek, 
"\\'ould twist his girdle tight, and pat 

The girls upon the cheek, 
,/Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 

And number'd head, and shrift, 
Bluff Harry broke into the spence 

And turii'd the cowls adrift : 
,/And I have seen some score of those 

Fresh faces, that would thrive 
"When his man-minded offset rose 

To chase the deer at five; 
,/And all that from the town would stroll, 

Till that wild wind made work 
In which the gloomy brewer's soul 

Went by me, like a stork : 
,/The slight she-slips of loyal blood, 

And others, passing praise, 
Strait-laced, but all-too-full in l)ud 

For puritanic stays: 
„And I have shadow'd many a group 

Of beauties, that were born 
In teacup-times of hood and hoop, 

Or Avhile the patch was worn ; 
,/And, leg and arm with love-knots g;iy, 

About me leap'd and laugh'd 
The modest Cupid of the day. 

And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 
i,\ swear (and else may insects prick 

Each leaf into a gall) 
This girl, for whom your heart is sick, 

Is three times worth them all ; 
,/For those and theirs, by Nature's law, 



THE TALKING OAK. 



Have faded loii^ ago; 
But in these Litter spriiigs I saw 
I Your own Olivia blown, 

I „From when she ganiboll'd on the greens. 
' A baby-germ, to when 
I The maiden blossoms of her teens 
Could number five from ten. 

„\ swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, 
I (x\ud hear me with thine ears.) 
I That, tho' I circle in the grain 
i Five hundred rings of years — 

,/Yet, since I first could cast a shade 
Did never creature pass 
i So slightly, musically made, 
So light upon the grass : 
„For as to fairies, that will flit 

To make the greensward fresh ; 
I hold them exquisitely knit, 
But far too spare of flesh/' 
Oil, hide thy knotted knees in fern, 

And overlook the chace, 
And from thy topmost branch discern 

The roofs of Sumner-place, 
But thou, whereon I carved her name, 

That oft hast beard my vows, 
Declare when last Olivia came 
To sport beneath thy boughs. 
„0 yesterday, you know, the fair 

Was holden at the town ; 
Her father left his good arm-chair. 

And rode his hunter down, 
„And with him Albert came on his. 

I look'd at him with joy : 
AS cowslip unto oxlip is, 

So seems she to the boy. 
vAn hour had past — and, sitting straight 
\ Within the low-wlieel'd chaise, 
] Her mother trundled to the gate 

Behind the dappled grays. 
I ,/But, as for her, she stay'd at home, 
1 And on the roof she went, 
I And down the way you use to come, 
j She look'd with'discontent. 
I „She left the novel half-uncut. 
I Upon the rosew^ood shelf; 
She left the new piano shut : 

She could not please herself. 
„Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, 

And livelier than a lark 
She sent her voice thro' all the holt 



Before her, and the park. 

,/A light wind chased her on the wing, 

And in the chase grew wild, 
xls close as might be would he cling 

About the darling child : 

./But light as any wind that blows 

So fleetly did she stir. 
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 

And turn'd to look at her. 

,/And here she came, and round me play'd; 

And sang to me the whole 
Of those three stanzas that you made 

xibout my 'giant bole ;' 

,,And in a fit of frolic mirth 

She strove to span my waist: 
Alas, I was so broad of girth, 

I could not be embraced. 

,/I wisli'd myself the fair young beech 

That here beside me stands, 
That round me, clasping each in each, 

She might have lock'd her hands. 

7 Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet 

As woodbine' s fragile hold. 
Or when I feel about my feet 

The berried briony fold." 

muftie round thy knees with fern. 

And shadow Sumner-chace ! 
Long may thy topmost branch discern 

The roofs of Sumner-place ! 

But tell me, did she read the name 

I carved with many vows 
When last with throbbing heart I came 

To rest beneath thy boughs V 
,,0 yes, she w^ander'd round and round 

These knotted knees of mine. 
And found, and kiss'd the name she found, 

And sweetly murmur'd thine. 
,/A teardrop trembled from its source, 

And down my surface crept. 
My sense of touch is something coarse, 

But I believe she wept. 
,./Then flusli'd her seek with rosy light, 

She glanced across the plain; 
But not a creature Avas in sight: 

She kiss'd me once again. 
,/Her kisses were so close and kind. 

That, trust me on my werd, 
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, 

But yet my sap was stirr'd: 



60 



THE TALKING OAK. 



,, And even into my immost ring 

A pleasure I discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 

That show the year is turned. 
„Thrice-happy he that may caress 

The ringlet's waving balm — 
The cushions of whose touch may press 

The maiden's tender palm. 
„I, rooted here among the groves, 

But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 

With anthers and with dust: 
z/^or ah ! my friend, the days were brief 

Whereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf, 

Could slip its bark and walk. 
„But could I, as in times foregone. 

From spray, and branch, and stem, 
Have suck'd and gather'd into one 

The life that spreads in them, 
„She had not found me so remiss; 

But lightly issuing thro', 
I would have paid her kiss for kiss. 

With usury thereto." 
flourish high, with leafy towers, 

And overlook the lea. 
Pursue thy loves among the bowers 

But leave thou mine to me. 
flourish, hidden deep in fern. 

Old oak, I love thee well; 
A thousand thanks for what I learn 

And Avhat remains to tell. 
,,'Tis little more: the day was warm; 

At last, tired out with play, 
She sank her head upon her arm 

And at my feet she lay. 
,,Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. 

I breathed upon her eyes 
Thro' all the summer of my leaves 

A welcome mix'd with sighs. 
„I took the swarming sound of life — 

The music from the town — 
The murmurs of the drum and ftfe 

And luU'd them in my own. 
(/Sometimes I let a sumbeam slip, 

To light her shaded eye; 
A second flutter'd round her lip 

Like a golden butterfly; 
,,A third would glimmer on her neck 

To make the necklace shine ; 



Another slid, a sunny fleck, 

From head to ancle fine. 
,/Then close and dark my arms I spread, 

And shadow'd all her rest— r 
Dropt dews upon her golden head 

An acorn in her breast. .• 
,/But in a pet she started up, 

And pluck'd it out, and drew 
My little oakling from the cup, 

And flung him in the dew. 
„And yet it was a graceful gift— 

I felt a pang within 
As when I see the w^oodman lift 

His axe to slay my kin. 
„I shook him down because he was 

The finest on the tree. 
He lies beside thee on the grass. 

kiss him once for me, 
„0 kiss him twice and thrice for me. 

That have no lips to kiss. 
For never yet Avas oak on lea 

Shall grow so fair as this." 
Step deeper yet in herb and fern, 

Look further thro' the chace. 
Spread upward till thy boughs discern 

The front of Sumner-place. 
This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 

That but a moment lay 
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest 

Some happy future day. 
I kiss it twice, 1 kiss it thrice, 

The warmth it thence shall win 
To riper life may magnetise 

The baby-oak Avithin. 
But thou, while kingdoms overse 

Or lapse from hand to hand, 
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 

Thine acorn in the land. 
May never saw dismember thee. 

Nor wielded axe disjoint, 
That art the fairest-spoken tree 

From here to Lizard-point. 
rock upon thy toAvery top 

All throats that gurgle SAveet ! 
All starry culmination drop 

Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! 
All grass of silky feather grow — 

And Avhile he sinks or swells 
The full south-breeze around thee bloAv 

The sound of minster bells. 



\ 



LOVE Jj^D DUTY 



61 



The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 

That under deeply strikes ! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 

High up, in silver spikes ! 
Nor ever lightningr char thy grain. 

But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain. 

That makes thee broad and deep ! 
And hear me swear a solemn oath, 

That onlv bv thv side 
Will I to Ofive plight ray troth, 
. And gain her for my bride. 
And when my marriage morn may fall, 

She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 

In wreath about her hair. 
And I will work in prose and rhyme. 

And praise thee more in both 
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, 

Or that Thessalian growth, 
In which the swarthy ringdove sat, 

And mystic sentence spoke ; 
And more than England honours that. 

Thy famous brother-oak, 
Wherein the younger Charles abode 

Till all the paths were dim, 
xiud far below the Roundhead rode, 

And humm'd a surly hymn. 

LOVE AND D U T Y. i 
Or love that never found his earthly close, 
What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking 

(hearts^ 
Or all the same as if he had not been ? 

Not so. Shall Error in the round of time 
Still father Truth? shall the braggart shout 
For some blind glimpse of freedom work 

(itself 
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law 
; System and empire? Sin itself be found 
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun ? 
And only he, this wonder, dead, become 
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone 
\ Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, 
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself ? 
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, 
Better tlie narrow brain, the stony heart. 
The starin g eye glazed o'er with sapless days. 
The long mechanic pacings to and fro, 
The set gray life, and apathetic end. 
1 But am 1 not the nobler thro' thy love ? 
! three times less unworthv! likewise thou 

i 



Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy 

(years. 
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon 
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring 
The drooping flower of knowledge changed 

(to fruit 
Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, 
xlndthat which shapesit to someperfect end. 
Will some one say. Then why not ill for good? 
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man 
My work shall answer.since I knew the right 
And did it ; for a man is not as God, 
But then most Godlike being most a man. 
— So let me think 'tis well for thee and me — 
Ill-fated tliat I am, what lot is mine 
Whose, foresight preaches peace, my heart 

(so slow 
To feel it ! For how hard it seem'd to me, 
When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, 

(would dwell 
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, 
Then not to dare to see! v/hen thy low voice, 
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep 
My own f'nll-tuned,-hold passion in a leash, 
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, 
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) 
Rain out" the heavy mist of tears, that 

(weigh'd 
Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! 

For love himself'took part against himself 
To warn us oif, and Duty loved of Love — 
this world's curse, — beloved but hated — 

(came 
Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and 

(mine. 
And crying, „Who is this? behold thy bride." 
She push'd me from thee. 

If the sense is hard 
To alien ears, I did not speak to these — 
No, not to thee, but to thyself in me : 
Hard is my doom and thine: thouknowest 
(it all. 

Could Love part thus ? was it not well to 
(speak. 
To have spoken once? It could not but be 

(well. 
The slow sweet hours that bring us all 

(things good, 
The slow sad hours that bring us all things 

(ill. 
And all good things from evil, brought the 

(night 
In which we sat together and alone. 
And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, 



THE GOLDEN YEAR. 



Gave ulteraDce by the yearning of au eye, 
That burn'il upon its object thro' such tears 
As flow but once a life. 

The trance gave way 
To those caresses, when a hundred times 
In that last kiss, which never was the last, 
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and 

(died. 
Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the 

(words 
That make a man feel strong in speaking 

(truth; 
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead 
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd 
In that brief night ; the summer night,that 

(paused 
Among her stars to hear us ; stars that hung 
Love-charm'dtolisten:allthew^heelsofTime 
Spun round in station,but the eudhad come. 

then like those, who clench their nerves 
(to rush 
Upon their dissolution, we two rose, 
There — closing like an individual life — 
In one blind cry of passion and pain, 
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, 
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, 
And bade adieu for ever. 

Live, — yet live — 
Shall sharpest pathos blight us,knowingall 
Life needs for life is possible to will — 
Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by 
My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy 

(thoughts 
Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou 
For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, 
If not to be forgotten — not at once — 
^N'ot all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, 
might it come like one that looks content. 
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth. 
And point thee forward to a distant light, 
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart 
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd 
Then when the first low matin-chirp hath 

(grown 
Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of 

(pearl 
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, 
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. 

THE GOLDEN YEAH. 
AVell, you shall have that song which Leo- 

(nard wrote : 
It was last summer on a tour in Wales: 
Old James was with me: we that day had been 



UpSnowdon:andI wish'd forLeonard there, 
And found him in Llanberis : then we crost 
Between the lakes, and chamber'd half way 

(up 
The counter side: and that same song of his 
He told me; for I banter d him, and swore 
They said he lived shut up within himself, 
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, 
That, setting the how mucli before the liow^ 
Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech. 

(„Give, 
Cram us with all, ''but count not me the herd! 

To which „They call me what they will/' 
(he said: 
,/ But I was born too late: the fair new forms, \ 
That float about the threshold of an age, " 

Like truths of Science waitingto be caught- 
Catch me who can, and make tlie catcher 

(crown'd — 
Are taken by the forelock. Let \\. be. 
But if you care indeed to listen, hear 
These measured w^ords, my works of yester- 

(morn. 

,/We sleep and wake and sleep, hut all 
(things move ; 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; 
The darkEarthfollowswheel'd in her ellipse; 
And human things returning on themselves 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 

„Ah, tho' the times, when some new 
(thought can bud, 
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower. 
Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore. 
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march. 
And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 

„When wealth no more shall rest in 
(mounded heaps, 
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
In many streams to fatten lower lands. 
And light shall spread,and man be liker man "^ 
Thro' all the season of the golden year. I 

,, Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? I 
If all the world were falcons, what of that? ' 
The wonder of the eagle were the less. 
But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
Boll onward, leading up the golden year. 

„Fly,happy happy sails and bear the Press : 
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; 
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
With silks. and fruits,and spices,clear of toll, 
Enrich the markets of the golden year. 

„But we grow old. Ahl when shall all 
(men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace ^ 



tLrSSES. 



r5-4 



Lie like a shaft of light across the IcUid, 
And like a lane of heams athwart the sea, 
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?" 
Thus far lie flow'd and ended; whereupon 
„xili, folly! in mimic cadence answer'd 

(James — 
„Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, 
Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 

; 'Tis like tlio second world to us that live; 
Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven 
As on this vision of the golden year." 
With that he struck his staff againsttherocks 
And broke it, — James, — you know him, — 
(old, but full 

^ Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, 
Aijd like an oaken stock in winter woods: 

; O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis: 

i Then added, all in heat: 

I ,,What stuff is this! 

i Old writers p II sh'd the happy season back, — 

I The more fools they, — we forward: dream- 

; (ers both ; 

i You most, that in an age : when every hour 
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death. 
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt 
Upon the teeming harvest,should notplunge 
His hand into the bag: but well I know 
That unto him who works, and feels he 

(works. 
This same grand year is ever at the doors." 
He spoke, and, high above, I heard them 
(blast 
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo 

(flap 
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. 

ULYSSES. 

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren 

(crags, 
Match'd with an agedwife,Imet6 and dole 
Unequallaws unto a savage race. 
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know 

(not me. 
I cannot rest from travel: 1 will drink 
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd 
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with 

(those 
That loved me, and alone: on shore, and 

(when 
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name: 
For always roaming with a hungry heart 
Muchhuve I seen and ksiorvu: cities of men 



And manners, climates, councils, govern- 

(ments, 
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; 
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 
I am a part of all that I have met;' 
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose mar- 

(gin fades 
For ever and for ever when I move. 
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unbnrnish'd, not to shine in use! 
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on 

(life 
Were all too little, and of one to me 
Little remains : but every hour is saved 
From that eternal silence, something more, 
A bringer of new things; and vile it were 
lor some three suns to store and hoard mv- 

(self. 
And this gray spirit yearning in desire 
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 
Beyondthe utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
To Avhom 1 leave the sceptre and the isle — 
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill 
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
Of common duties, decent not to fail 
In offices of tenderness, and pay 
Meet adoration to my househould god.?, 
When I am gone. He works his work. I mine. 
There lies the port: the vessel puff's her sail : 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My marin- 

(ers, 
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and 

(thought with me — 
That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads — vou and I are 

(old; 

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; 
Death closes all: but something ere the end. 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
Xot unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: 

(the deep* 
Moans round with many voices. Come, my 

(friends, 
Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and sitting wtll in order smite 



64 LOCKSLEY HALL. 

The sounding finTOAvs; for my purpose holds AVe are not now that strength which in old 

(days 
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are; 

(we are ; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong iu 

(will 
To strive, to seek, to tind, and not to yield. 



To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down. 
It may be we shairtouch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 



LOCKSLEY HALL. 

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn: 

Leave me here, and when you want' me, sound upon the bugle horn. 

'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, 

Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, 

And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest. 

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, 

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. . 

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime 

With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time ; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed ; 

When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see ; 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. — 

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; 

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one as young: 

And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 

And I said, //My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, 

Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." 

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light. 

As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 

And she turn'd — her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs — 

All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes — 

Saying, „I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;'' 

Saying, ,/Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, I have loved thee long." 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands ; 

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; 

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. 

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring. 

And her whisper throug'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. 



LOCKSLET HJLL. 

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, 
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. 

my cousin, shallow-hearted! my Amy, mine no more! 

the dreary, dreary moorland! the barren, barren shore! 

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung. 
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! 

Is it well to wish thee happy? — having known me — to decline 
On a range of lower feelings* and a narrower heart than mine! 

Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, 

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. 

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown. 

And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, 

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. 

What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. 

Go to him; it is thy duty: kiss'hini: take his hand in'thine. 

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: 

Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. 

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand — 

Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand! 

Better thou and 1 were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, 

RoU'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. 

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth ! 

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth! 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest iS"ature's rule! 

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened forehead of the fool ! 

Well — 'tis well that I should bluster! — Hadst thou less unworthy proved — 

Would to God — for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. 

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? 

1 will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. 
IS^ever, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come 
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging* rookery home. 
W'here is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? 

Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind ? 
I remember one that perish'd : sweetly did she speak and move : 
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love. 
Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? 
No — she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore. 
Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, 
. That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. 
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, 
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof. 
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall. 
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. 
Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep. 
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. 



66 LOCKSLET HALL 

Thou shalt hear tlie „Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years. 
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;' 

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 
Turn thee, turn thee on the pillow : get thee to thy rest again. 

Xay, but Nature l)rings tbee solace; for a tender voice will cry. 
'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. 

Eaby lips will ]aus:h me down : my latest rival brings thee rest. 
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press from the mother's breast. 

0, the child too clotlies the father with a dearness not his due. 

Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the two. 

0, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part. 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's lieart. 

,/They were dangerous guides the feelings — she herself was not exempt — 

Truly, sbe herself had suffer'd" — Perish in thy selfcontempt ! 

Overlive it — lower yet — be happy! wherefore should I care? 

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. 

"What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? 

Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. 

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. 

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? 

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, 

When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. 

But the j ingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, 

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. 

Can I but relive in sadness, I will turn that earlier page. 

Hide me from my deep emotion. thou wondrous Mother-Age I 

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife. 

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life ; 

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, 

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, 

And a;t night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, 

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; 

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men; 

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: 

Tliat which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do : 

Eor I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails; 

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales. 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew 

Erom the notions' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Ear along the world-wide whisper of the southwind rushing warm. 

A\'ith the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm; 

Till the wav-dr»im thro])b'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl*d 

lu the Parliiiment of ma]), the Eederation of the world. 



LOCKSLEY HALL. 

There the common sense of most sliall bold a fretful renlm in a^^e, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 

So I triumpb'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, 

Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; 

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: 
Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point: 

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, 
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns, 

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, 

Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's':* 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, 

And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast. 

Tull of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. 

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-lioru, 

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn; 

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on sucli a moulder'd string? 

I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. 

Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's pleasure, woman's pain — 

IS'ature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain: 

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, 

xire as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine — 

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat 

Deep in yonder sbining Orient, where my life began to beat -, 

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd; — 

I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward. 

Or to burst all links of habit — there to wander far away, 

On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. 

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, 

Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. 

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, 

Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from tlie crag ; 

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree — 

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. 

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind. 

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. 

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space 

I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. 

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, 

Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun: 

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, 

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books — 

Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I hiow my words are wild, 

But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. 



68 GOBIVA. 

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, 
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast witli lower painsi 
Mated with a squalid savage — what to me were sun or clime? 
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time — 
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, 
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalou! 
l^ot in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. 
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. 
Thro' the shadow of the glolfe we sweep into the younger day: 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : 
Kift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh tlie Sun - 
0, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! 
^OAV for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree fall. 
Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and liolt, 
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 
Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snoAV; 
lor the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. 



G D I V A. 

I waited for the train at Conventry; 

I hung vjith grooms and porters on the bridge, 

To vjatch the three tall spires ; and there I 

(shaped 
The city's aMcient legend into this: 

jN'ot only we, the latest seed of Time, 
iS'ew men, that in the flying of a wlieel 
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate 
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people 

(well, 
And loathed to see them overtax'd ; but she 
Did more, and underwent, and overcame. 
The woman of a thousand summers back, 
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, Avho ruled 
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax 
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 
Their children, clamouring, „If we pay, we 

(starve!" 
She sought her lord, and found him, where 

(he strode, 
About the hall, among his dogs, alone, 
His beard a foot before him, and his hair 
A yard behind. She told him of their tears. 
And pray'd him. „If they pay this tax, they 

(starve." 
"Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, 
„ You would not let your little finger ache 
For such as these?" — „But I would die," 

(said she. 



He laugh'd and swore by Peter and byPaul : 
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear ;. 
,/0 ay, ay, ay, you talk !" — „Alas !" she said, 
,/But prove me what it is I would not do.'' 
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, 
He answer'd, „Ride you naked thro' the 

(town. 
And I repeal it :" and nodding, as in scorn, 
He parted, with great strides among his dogs. 

So left alone, the passions of her mind, 
As winds from all the compass shift and 

(blow. 
Made war upon each other for an hour, 
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, 
And bade him. cry, with soundof trumpet, all 
Thehard condition; but that she would loose 
The people: therefore, as they loved her well, 
From then till noon no foot should pace the 

(street, 
No eye look down, she passing ; but that all 
Should keep within, door shut, and window 

(barr'd. 
Then fled sh e to her immost bo wer.and there 
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, 
The grim Earl's gift ; but ever at a breath 
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon 
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head. 
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her 

(knee; 
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair 






THE Tiro VOICES. 



Stole on ; audjlike a creeping sunbeam, slid 
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd 
The gatewayitliere she found her palfrytrapt 
In purple blazon'd with amorial gold. 

Then she rode fortli,clothed on withchas- 
(tity: 
The deep air listened round ber as she rode, 
And all the low wind hardly breathed for 

(fear. 
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the 

(spout 
Had cunning eyes to see; the barking cur 
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall 

(shot 
Ligbt horrors thro' her pulecs : the blind 

(walls 
Were full of chinks and holes ;, and overhead 
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she 
jN^ot less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw 
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the 

(field 
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the 

(wall. 
Then she rode back,clothed on with chastity: 
And one low churl, compact of thankless 

(earth, 
The fatal byword of all years to come, 
Boring a little augur-hole in fear, 
Peep'd— but his eyes, before they had their 

(will. 
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, 
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who 

(wait 
On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused; 
And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at 

(once, 
With twelve great shocks of sound, the 

(shameless, noon 
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred 

(towers, 
One after one: but even then she gain'd 
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and 

(crown'd, 
To meet her lord, she took tlie tax away 
And built herself an everlasting name.' 

THE TWO VOICES. 

A STILL small voice spake unto me. 
„Thou art so full of misery, 
AVere it not better not to be ?" 
Then to the still small voice I said; 
;Let me not cast in endless shade 
What is so wonderfully made." 



To which the voice did urge reply ; 

„To-day I saw the dragon-fly 

Come from the wells where he did lie, 

„An inner impulse rent the veil 

Of his old husk: from head to tail 

Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 

,,He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: 

Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 

A living flash of light he flew." 

I said, „When first the world began. 

Young iS'ature thro' five cycles ran. 

And in the sixth she moulded man. 

„Slie gave him mind, the lordliest 

Proportion, and, above the rest. 

Dominion in the head and breast." 

Thereto the silent voice replied; 

„ Self-blinded are you by your pride: 

Look up thro' night: the world is wide. 

„This truth within thy mind rehearse, 

That in a boundless universe 

Is boundless better, boundless worse. 

„Think you this mould of hopes and fears 

Could find no statelier than his peers 

In yonder hundred million spheres':" 

It spake, moreover, in my mind: 

„Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, 

Yet is there plenty of the kind." 

Then did my response clearer fall, 

„No compound of this earthly ball 

Is like another, all in all." 

To which he answer'd scoffingly; 

,,Good soul! suppose I grant it thee. 

Who'll weep for thy deficiency? 

,,0r will one beam be less intense, 

When thy peculiar difference 

Is canceli'd in the world of sense':" 

I would have said, „Thou canst not know," 

But my full heart, that work'd below, 

Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow. 

Again the voice spake unto me: 

,,tliou art so steep'd in misery. 

Surely 'twere better not to be. 

„Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, 

Xor any train of reason keep: 

Thou canst not think, butthou wilt weep." 

I said, „The years with change advance: 

If I make dark my countenance, 

I shut my life from happier chance. 

,,Some turn this sickness yet might take. 



70 



THE Tiro VOICES. 



Ev'n yet." But lie: „\VliHt drug can make 

A witlier'd palsy cease to shake ?" 

I wept, „Tho' I should die, I know 

That all ahout the thorn will blow 

In tufts of rosy-tinted snowj 

„And men, thro' novel spheres of thought 

Still moving after truth long souglit, 

"U'ill learn new things when I am not." 

,,Yet," said the secret voice, ,,sometinie, 

Sooner or later, will gray prime 

Make thy grass hoar with early rime. 

„]S"ot less swift souls that yearn for light, 

Kapt after heaven's starry flight, 

Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 

,-,yot less the bee would range her cells; 

The furzy prickle lire the dells. 

The foxglove cluster dappled bells." 

I said that „all the years invent ; 

Each month is various to present 

The world with some development. 

,;AVere this not well, to bide mine hour, 

Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower 

How grow^s the day of human power?" 

vThe highest-mounted mind," he said, 

„Still sees the sacred morning spread 

The silent summit overhead. 

,,\Vill thirty seasons render plain 

Those lonely lights that stil remain, 

Just breaking over land and main'::' 

Or make that morn, from his cold croAvu 

And crystal silence creeping down, 

riood with full daylight glebe and town? 

,; Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let 

Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set 

In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. 

„Thou hast not gain'd a real height, 

Nor art thou nearer to the light. 

Because the scale is infinite. 

,,'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 

ihan cry for strength, remaining weak, 

And seem to find, but still to seek. 

//Moreover, but to seem to find 

Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, 

A nealthy frame, a quiet mind." 

1 said, „\Vhen I am gone away, 

'He dared not tarry,' men will say, 

Doing dishonour to my clay." 

./This is more vile," he made reply, 

;,To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, 



Than once from dread of pain to die. 
„Sick art thou — a divided will 
Still heaping on the fear of ill 
The fear of men, a coward still. 
„Do men love thee? Art thou so bound 
To men, that how thy name may sound 
Will vex thee lying underground? 
,,The memory of the wither'dleaf 
In endless time is scarce more brief 
Than of the garner'd Autumn-shea 
„Go, vexed Spirit, sleep intrust; 
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, 
Hears little of the false or just." 
„Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, 
„Erom emptiness and the waste wide 
Of that abyss, or scornful pride! 
//Nay — rather yet that I could raise 
One hope that warm'd me in the days 
While still I yearn'd for human praise. 
„When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
Among the tents I paused and sung, 
The distant battle flash'd aud rung. 
1,1 sung the joyful Paean clear, 
And, sitting, burnish'd without fear 
The brand, the buckler, and the spear — 
^Waiting to strive a happy strife, 
To war with falsehood to the knife. 
And not to lose the good of life — 
„Some hidden principle to move. 
To put together, part and prove, 
And mete the bounds of hate and love — 
„As far as might be, to carve out 
i'ree space for every human doubt, 
That the whole mind might orb about — 
„To search thro' all I felt or saw. 
The springs of life, the depths of awe, 
And reach the law within the law : 
„At least, not rotting like a weed. 
But having sown some generous seed, 
Fruitful of further thought and deed, 
„To pass, when Life her light withdraws 
Not void of righteous self-applause, 
Nor-in a merely selfish cause — 
„In some good cause, not in mine own, 
To perish, wept for, honour'd, known. 
And like a warrior overthrown ; 
„Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, 
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears 
His country's war-song thrill his ears : 



THE TWO VOICES, 

//Then dying: of a mortal stroke, 

"What time tlie foemavi's line is broke, 

And all the war is rolPd in smoke." 

,,Yea !'^ said the voice, thy dream was good, 

While thou abodest in the bud. 

It was the stirring of the blood. 

„If nature put not forth her power 

About the opening of the tiower, 

Who is it that could live an hour ? 

,/Then comes the check, the change, the fall, 

Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 

There is one remedy for all. 

,/Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, 

Link'd month to month with such a chain 

Of knitted purport, all were vain. 

„Thou hadst not between death and birth 

Dissolved the riddle of the earth. 

So were thy labour little-worth. 

,/That men with knowledge merely play'd, 

T told thee — hardly nigher made, 

Tho* scaling slow from grade to grade ; 

„Muchless this dreamer, deaf and blind, 

Named man, may hope some truth to find, 

That bears relation to the mind. 

„For every worm beneath the moon 

Draws different threads, and late and soon 

Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. 

,/Cry, faint not : either Truth is born 

Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 

Or in the gateways of the morn. 

,/Cry, faint not, climb : the summits slope 

Beyond the furthest flights of hope. 

Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 

//Sometimes a little corner shines, 

As over rainy mist inclines 

A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 

„I will go forward, sayest thou, 

I shall not fail to find her now. 

Look up, the fold is on her brow. 

,/If straight thy track, or if oblique, 

Thou kncTw'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, 

Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; 

„And owning but a little more 

Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, 

Calling thyself a little lower 

„Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl ! 

Why inch by inch to darkness crawl ! 

There is one remedy for all." 

1,0 dull, one-sided voice," said I, 



71 



,/Wilt thou make everything a lie, 

To flatter me that I may die? 

,/I know that age to age succeeds, 

Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 

A dust of systems and of creeds. 

„I cannot hide that some have striven, 

Achieving calm, to whom was given 

The joy that mixes man with Heaven : 

vWho, rowing hard against the stream, 

Saw^ distant gates of Eden gleam. 

And did not dream it was a dream ; 

,/But heard, by secret transport led, 

Ev'n in the charnels of the dead. 

The murmur of the fountain-head — 

,/ Which did acomplish their desire, _ 

Bore and forbore, and did not tire. 

Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 

,/He heeded not reviling tones, 

is'or sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised witli 

(stones : 
,/But looking upward, full of grace, 
He pray'd, and from a happy place 
God's glory smote him on the face." 
The sullen answer slid betwixt: 
„Xot that the grounds of hope were fi\'d. 
The elements were kindlier mix'd." 
I said. III toll beneath the curse, 
But, knowing not the universe, 
I fear to slide from bad to worse. 
„And that, in seeking to undo 
One riddle, and to find the true, 
I knit a hundred others new : 
„0r that this anguish fleeting hence, 
Unmanacled from bonds of sense. 
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence : 
„Ecr I go, weak from suffering here ; 
Xaked 1 go, and void of cheer : 
What is it that I may not fear?" 
,/ Consider well," the voice replied: 
,/His face, that two hours since hath died^ 
Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride? 
,/Will he obey when one commands? 
Or answer should one press his hands? 
He answers not, nor understands. 
,./His palms are folded on his breast: 
There is not other thing expressed 
But long disquiet merged in rest. 
,/Hi3 lips are very mild and meek: 



THE TWO VOICES. 



Tho' one should smite him on the cheek, 
And on tlie mouth, he will not speak. 
,,Hiss little daughter, whose sweet face 
He kiss'd taking his last embrace. 
Becomes dishonour to her race — 
,/His sons grow up that bear his name, 
Some grow to honour, some to shame, — 
But he is chill to praise or blame. 
„tle will not hear the northwind rave, 
jN'or, moaning, household shelter crave 
From winter rains that beat his grave. 
„High up the vapours fold and swim : 
About him broods the twilight dim: 
The place he knew forgetteth him." 
vlf all be dark, vague voice," I said, 
„These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, 
Xor canst thou show the dead are dead. 
//The sap dries up: the plant declines. 
A deeper tale my heart divines. 
Know I not Death ? the outwards signs ? 
//I found him when my years were few ; 
A shadow on the graves I knew, 
And darkness in the village yew. 
„From grave to grave the shadow crept : 
In her still place the morning wept 
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. 
,/The simple senses crown'd his head: 
,Omega ! thou at Lord,' they said, 
jTVe tind no motion in the dead'. 
(/"W'hy, if man rot in dreamless ease, 
Should that plain fact, as taught by these, 
Xot make him sure that he shall cease? 
,/"Vyho forged that other influence. 
That heat of inward evidence, 
Bij which he doubts against the sense? 
„He owns the fatal gift of eyes, 
That read his spirit blindly'wise, 
Xot simple as a thing that dies. 
,/Here sits he shaping wings to fly : 
Ilis heart forbodes a mystery : 
He names the name Eternity. 
,/That type of Perfect in his mind 
In Nature can he nowhere find. 
He sows himself on every wind. 
//He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 
And thro' thick veils to apprehend 
A labour working to an end. 
„The end and the beginning vex 
His reason: many things perplex 



With motions, checks, and counterchecks. 

/,He knows a baseness in his l)lood 

At such strange war with something good, 

He may not do the thing he would. 

,/Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, 

Vast images in glimmering dawn. 

Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. 

,/Ah! sure within him and without. 

Could his dark wisdom find it out, 

There must be answer to his doubt. 

,/Butthou canst answer not again. 

With thine own weapon art thou slain, 

Or thou wilt answer but in vain. 

,/The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. 

In the same circle we revolve. 

Assurance only breeds resolve." 

As when a billow, blown against, 

Falls back, the voice with which I fenced 

h. little ceased, but recommenced. 

,/ Where wert thou when thy father play'd 

In his free field, and pastime made, 

A merry boy in sun and shade ? 

/,A merry boy they called him then, 

He sat upon the knees of men 

In days that never come again. 

,/Before the little ducts began 

To feed thy bones with lime, and ran 

Their course, till thou wert also man ; 

,/Wlio took a wife, who rear'd his race, 

Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, 

Whose troubles number with his days: 

„A life of nothings, nothing worth, 

From that first nothing ere his birth 

To that last nothing under earth !" 

,/ These words," I said, ,/are like the rest, 

iso certain clearness, but at best 

A vague suspicion of the breast : 

„But if I grant, thou might*st defend 

The thesis which thy words intend — 

That to begin implies to end ; 

,/Yet how should I for certain hold. 

Because my memory is so cold. 

That I first was in human mould ? 

1,1 cannot make this matter plain. 

But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, 

A randow arrow from the brain. 

„It may be that no life is found, 

Which only to one engine bound 

Falls ofl:', but cycles always round. 



THE Tiro VOICES. 



73 



„As old. mythologies relate, 

Some draught of Lethe might await 

The slipping thro* from state to state. 

„As here we find in trances, men 

i'orget the dream that happens then, 

Until they fall in trance again. 

,/So might we, if our state were such 

As one before, remember much, 

For those two likes might meet and touch. 

„But, if I lapsed from nobler place, 

Some legend of a fallen race 

Alone might hint of my disgrace; 

„Some vague emotion of delight 

In gazing up an Alpine height, 

Some yearning toward the lamps of night. 

„0r if thro' lower lives I came — 

Tho' all experience past became 

Consolidate in mind and frame — 

„I might forget my weaker lot ; 

For is not our first year forgot V 

The haunts of memory echo not. 

„And men, whose reason long was blind. 

From cells of madness unconfined, 

Oft lose whole years of darker mind. 

„Much more, if first I floated free, 

As naked essence, must I be 

Incompetent of memory : 

„For memory dealing but with time, 

And he with matter, should she climb 

Beyond her own material prime? 

-/Moreover, something is or seems. 

That touches me with mystic gleams. 

Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — 

Of something felt, like something here ; 

Of something done, I know not where ; 

Such as no language may declare." 

The still voice laugh'd. ,/I talk," said he, 

(/Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee 

Thy pain is a reality." 

,/But thou," said I, „hast miss'd thy mark, 

Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, 

By making all the horizon dark. 

„ Why not set forth, if I should do 

This rashness, that which might ensue 

With this old soul in organs new? 

^Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 

No life that breathes with human breath 

Has ever truly long'd for death. 

^'Ti life, wher«6f our nei'ves are scant. 



Oh life, not death, for which we pantj 

More life, and fuller, that I want. 

I ceased, and sat as ane forlorn. 

Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, 

„Behold it is the sabbath morn." 

And I arose, and I released 

The casement, and the light increased 

With freshness in the dawning east. 

Like soften'd airs that bio wing steal. 

When meres begin to uncongeal. 

The sweet church bells began to peal. 

On to God's house the people prest : 

Passing the place where each must rest, 

Each enter'd like a welcome guest. 

One walk'd between his wife and child, 

With measured footfall firm and mild, 

And now and then he gravely smiled. 

The prudent partner of his blood 

Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, 

Wearing the rose of womanhood. 

And in their double love secure. 

The little maiden walk'd demure 

Pacing with downward eyelids pure. 

These three made unity so sweet, 

My frozen heart began to beat, 

Kemembering its ancient heat. 

I blest them, and they wander'd on : 

I spoke, but answer came there none: 

The dull and bitter voice Avas gone. 

A second voice was at mine ear, 

A little whisper silver-clear, 

A murmur, „Be of better cheer." 

As from some blissful neighbourhood, 

A notice faintly understood, 

„I see the end, and know the good." 

A little hint to solace woe, 

A hint, a whisper breathing low, 

„I may not speak of what I know." 

Like an iEolian harp that wakes 

No certain air, but overtakes 

Far thought with music that it makes : 

Such seem'd the whisper at my side : 

„.What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?"! 

(cried. 
„k. hidden hope, the voice replied : 
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower. 
To feel^ altJio' no tongue can prove. 



THE DAY BREAM. 



That every cloud, that spreads above 
And veiletli love, itself is love. 

And forth into the fields I went, 
And jVature's living motion lent 
The pulse of hope to discontent. 

I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, 
The slow result of winter showers: 
You scarce could see the grass for flowers 

1 wonder'd, while I paced|along: 

The woods were lilPd so full with song, 

Tliere seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 

So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought; 
And wherefore rather I made choice 
To commune with that barren voice, 
Than him that said, ,/Rejoice ! rejoice !" 



THE DAY DEEAM. 
PROLOGUE. 
Lady Elora, let me speak: 

A pleasant hour has past away 
While, dreaming on your damask cheek, 

The dewy sister-eyelids lay. 
As by the lattice you reclined, 

1 went thro' many wayward moods 
To see you dreaming — and, behind, 

A summer crisp with shining woods. 
And I too dream'd, until at last 

Across my fancy, brooding warm. 
The reflex of a legend past. 

And loosely settled into form. 
And would you have the thought 1 had, 

And see the vision that I saw. 
Then take the broidery-frame, and add 

A crimson to the quaint Macaw, 
And 1 will tell it. Turn your face, 

iVor look with that too-earnest eye — 
The rhymes are dazzled from their place, 

And order'd words asunder fly. 
THE SLEEPING PALACE. 
I. 
Tjf K varying year with blade and sheaf 

Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; 
Here rests the sap within the leaf. 

Here stays the blood along the veins. 
Taint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd. 

Faint murmurs from the meadows come. 
Like hints and echoes of the world 

To spirits folded in the wombs 



Soft lustre bathes the range of urns 

On every slanting terrace-lawn. 
The fountain to his place returns 

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. 
Here droops the banner on the tower, 

On the hall-hearts the festal fires, 
The peacock in his laurel bower, 

The parrot in his gilded wires. 
III. 
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: 

In these, in those the life is stay'd. 
The mantles from the golden pegs 

Droop sleepily; no sound is made, 
Not even of a gnat that sings. 

More like a picture seemeth all 
Than those old portraits of old kings, 

That watch the sleepers from the wall, 

IV, 

Here sits the Butler with a flask 

Between his knees,half-drain'd; and there 
The wrinkled steward at his task. 

The maid-of-honour blooming fair; 
The page has caught her hand in his : 

Her lips are sever'd as to speak : 
His own are pouted to a kiss : 

The blush is fi.x:'d upon her cheek, 

V. 

Till all the hundred summers pass. 

The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine, 
Make prisms in every carven glass, 

And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. 
Each baron at the banquet sleeps, 

Grave faces gather'd in a ring. 
His state the king reposing keeps. 

He must have been a jovial king. 

VI. 

All round a hed^e upshoots, and shows 

At distance like a little wood ; 
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes, 

And grapes with bunches red as blood ; 
All creeping plants, a wall of green 

Close-matted, bur and brake and briar, 
And glimpsing over these, just seen, 

High up, the topmost palace-spire. 

VII. 

When will the hundred summers die, 

And thought and time be born again, 
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, 

Bring truth that sways the soul of men ? 
Here all things in their place remain. 

As all were order'd, ages since. 
Come, care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 

And bring the fated fairy Prince. 



TEE BAY DUEAM. 



75 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 

T. 

Yeae after year unto her feet, 

She lying on her couch alone, 
Across the purpled coverlet, 

The maiden's jet-hlack hair has grown, 
On either side her tranced form 

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: 
The slumbrous light is rich and warm, 

And moves not on the rounded curl. 
II. 
The silk star-broider'd coverlid 

Unto her limbs itself doth mould 
Languidly ever; and, amid 

Her full black ringlets downward roll 'd, 
Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm 

With bracelets of the diamond briglit -. 
Her constant beauty doth inform 

Stillness with love, and day with light. 
III. 
Slie sleeps : her breathings are not heard 

In palace chambers far apart. 
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 

That lie upon her charmed heart. 
She sleeps: on either hand upswells 

The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest: 
Slie sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 

A perfect form in perfect rest. 
THE ARRIVAL. 
1. 
All precious things, discover'd late, 

To those that seek them issue forth; 
For love in sequel works with fate, 

And draws the veil from hidden worth. 
He travels far from other skies — 

His mantle glitters on the rocks — 
A fairy Prince, with j oyf ul eyes. 

And lighter-footed than the fox. 
II. 
The bodies and the bones of those 

That strove in other days to pass, 
Are wither'd in the thorny close, 

Or scatter'd blanching on the grass. 
He gazes on the silent dead: 

„They perish'd in their daring deeds." 
This proverb flashes thro' his head, 

„The many fail : the one succeeds." 
Ill, 
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks; 

He breaks the hedge: he enters tliere: 
The colour flies into his cheeks: 

He trusts to light on something fair; 
For all his life the charm did talk"^ 

About his path, and hover near 



With words of promise in his walk, 
And whisper 'd voices at his ear. 

IV, 

More close and close his footsteps wind : 

The Magic Music in his heart 
Beats quick and quicker, till he find 

The quiet chamber far apart. 
His spirit flutters like a lark. 

He stoops — to kiss her — on his knee. 
//Love, if thy tresses be so dark, 

How dark those hidden eyes must be"' 
THE REVIVAL. 
I. 
A TOUCH, a kiss ! the charm was snapt. 

There rose a noise of striking clocks, 
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, 

And barking dogs, and crowing corks ; 
k. fuller light illumined all, 

xibreeze'thro' all the garden swept, 
A sudden hubbub shook the hall. 

And sixty feet the fountain leapt. 

TI. 

The hedge broke in, the banner blew, 

The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd: 
The fire shot up, the martin flew, 
The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall 'd. 
The maid and page renew'd their strife. 

The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt. 
And all the long-pent stream of life 

Dash'd downward in a cataract. 
III. 
And last with these the king awoke, 

And in his chair himself uprear'd, 
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke, 

,,By holy rood, a royal beard! 
How say you ? we have slept, my lords. 

My beard has grown into my lap." 
The baron swore, Avith many words, 

'Twas but an after-dinner's nap. 

IV. 

,,Pardy," return'd the king, „but still 

My joints are somewhat stiff or so. 
My lord, and shall we pass the bill 

I meution'd half an hour ago?" 
The chancellor, sedate and vain. 

In courteous words return'd reply: 
But dallied with his golden chain, * 

xind, smiling, put the question bv. 
THE DEPARTURE. 
I. 
AxD on her lover's arm she leant, 

And round her waist she felt it fold. 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old : 



76 



THE BAY'DREAM. 



Across the hills, and far way 

Beyond tlieir utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess follow'd him. 
ir. 
,,rd sleep another hundred years, 

love, for such another kiss;" 
,/0 wake for ever, love,'' she hears, 

,/0 love, 't was such as this and this/' 
And o'er them many a sliding star. 

And many a merry wind was borne. 
And, stream'd thro'' many a golden bar, 

The twillight melted into "morn. 
III. 
„0 eyes long laid in happy sleep \" 

„0 happy sleep, that lightly lied !'' 
,/0 happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" 

„0 love, thy kiss would wake the dead!' 
And o'er thern many a flowing range 

Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark. 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 

The twilight died into the dark^ 

IV. 

„ A hundred summers ! can it be r 

And whither goest thou, tell me where:' 
,/0 seek my father's court with me, 

For there are greater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
Beyond the night, across the day, 

thro' all the world she follow'd him, 
MORAL. 
I. 
So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 

And if you find no moral there, 
Go, look in any glass and say, 

What moral is in being fair. 
Oh, to what uses shall Ave put 

The wildweed-flower that simply blows r 
And is there any moral shut 

"Within the bosom of the rose'r 
II 
But any man that walks the mead, 

In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 
According as his humours lead, 

A meaning suited to his mind. 
And liberal applications lie 

In Art like Nature, dearest friend; 
So 'twere to cramp its use, if I 

Should hook it to some useful end. 
L'ENVOI. 
I. 
You shake your head. A random string 

Your finer female sense offends. 



Well — were it not a pleasant thing 

To fall asleep with all one's friends; 
To pass with all our social ties 

To silence from the paths of men; 
And every hundred years to rise 

And learn the world, and sleep again, 
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars. 

And Avake on science grown to more. 
On secrets of the brain, the stars, 

As wild as aught of fairy lore ; 
And all that else the years Avill show, 

The Poet-forms of stronger hours, 
The vast Republics that may grow, 

The Federations and the PoAvers ; 
Titanic forces taking birth 

In divers seasons, divers climes, 
For Ave are Ancients of the earth, 

And in the morning of the times. 
II. 
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep 

Thro' sunny decads new and strange, 
Or gay quinquenuiads Avould Ave reap 

The flower and quintessence of change. 
III. 
Ah, yet would I — and would I might ! 

So much your eyes my fancy take — 
Be still the first to leap to light 

That I might kiss those eyes aAvake! 
For, am I eight, or am I Avrong, 

To choose your own you did not care; 
Y'ou'd have my moral from the song, 

And I will take my pleasure there ; 
And, am 1 right or am I Avrong, 

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', 
To search a meaning for the song. 

Perforce Avill still revert to you : 
iS'or finds a closer truth than this 

All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, 
And evermore a costly kiss 

The prelude to some brighter world. 

IV. 

For since the time when Adam first 

Embraced his Eve in happy horn*, 
And every bird of Eden burst 

In carol, every bud to flower, 
What eyes, like thine, have Avaken'd hopes r 

What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd": 
Where on the double rosebud droops 

The fullness of the pensive mind: 
Which all too dearly self-involved, 

Y'et sleeps a dreamless sleep to me; 
A sleep by kisses undissolved. 

That lets thee neither hear nor see : 
But break it. In the name of Avife, 



AM'PHJON. 



77 



And in the rights that name may give, 
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life, 

And that for which I care to live. 
EPILOGUE. 
0, Lady Flora, take my lay, 

And,' if you find a meaning tliere, 
whisper to your glass, and say, 

,/What wonder, if he thinks me fair'r" 
What wonder I was all unwise, 

To sliape the song for your delight 
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, 

That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light ? 
Or old-world trains, upheld at court 

By Cupid-boys of blooming hue — 
But take it — earnest wed with sport, 

And either sacred unto you. 

A M P H 1 IS' . 

My father left a park to me, 

But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree, 

And waster than a warren : 
Yet say the neighbours when they call. 

It is nod bad but good land, 
And in it is the germ of all 

That grows within the woodland. 

had I lived when song was great 

In days of old Amphion, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 

Xor cared for seed or scion ! 
And had I lived when song was great. 

And legs of trees were limber. 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 

And fiddled in the timber ! 

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue. 

Such happy intonation, 
AYherever he sat down and sung 

He left a small plantation ; 
Wherever in a lonely grove 

He set up his forlorn pipes, 
The gouty oak began to move. 

And flounder into hornpipes. 

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, 

And, as tradition teaches, 
Young ashes pirouetted down 

Coquetting with young beeches ; 
And briony-vine and ivy- wreath 

Ran forward to his rhyming. 
And from the valleys iinderneath 

Came little copses climbing. 

The linden broke her ranks and rent 
The woodbine wreaths that bind her, 



And down the middle buzz ! she went 

With all her bees behind her; 
The poplars, in long order due. 

With cypress promenaded. 
The shock-head willows two and two 

Bij rivers gallopaded. 
Came wet-shot alder from the wave, 

Came yews, a dismal coterie ; 
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave, 

Poussetting with a sloe-tree: 
01(1 elms came breaking from the vine, 

The vine streamed out to follow, 
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine 

From many a cloudy hollow. 
And wasn't it a sight to see. 

When, ere his song was ended. 
Like some great landslip, tree by tree, 

The country-side descended ; 
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves 
Look*d down, half-pleased, half-frighteii'd, 
As dash'd about the drunken leaves 

The random sunshine lighten'dl 
Oh ! nat ure first was fresh to men, 

And wanton without measure; 
So youthful and so flexile then. 

You moved her at your pleasure. 
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! 

And make her dance attendance, 
Blow, flute, and stir the stift'-set sprigs. 

And scirrhous roots and tendons. 
'Tis vain ! in such a brassy age 

I could not move a thistle"; 
The very sparrows in the hedge 

Scarce answer to my whistle; 
Or at the most, when tliree-parts-sick 

With strumming and with scraping, 
A jackass heehaws from the rick. 

The passive oxen gaping. 
But what is that I hear? a sound 

Like sleepy counsel pleading; 
Lord! — 'tis in my neighbour's ground, 

The modern Muses reading. 
They read Botanic Treatises, 

And Works on Gardening thro' there, 
And Methods of transplanting trees, 

To look as if they grew there. 
The wither'd Misses! how they prose 

O'er books of travell'd seamen, 
And show you slips of all that grows 

From England to Van Diemen. 
They read in arbours dipt and cut, 

And alleys, faded places, 



7^ 

By squares of tropic summer shut 
'And warm'd in crystal cases. 

But tliese, tho' fed with careful dirt, 

Are neither green nor sappy; 
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt. 

The spindlings look unhappy. 
Better to me the meanest weed 

That blows upon its mountain, 
The vilest herb that runs to seed 

Beside its native fountain. 

And I must work thro' months of toil 

And years of cultivation, 
Upon niy proper patch of soil 

To grow my own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 

I will not vex my bosom : 
Enough if at the end of all 

A little garden blossom. 



STR GALAHAD. 



ST. A G Ts E S' E Y E. 
Def.p on the convent-roof the snows 

Are sparkling to the moon : 
My breath to heaven like vapour goes : 

May my soul follow soon 1 
Tlie shadows of the convent-towers 

Slant down the snowy sward, 
Still creeping with the creeping hours 

That lead me to my Lord : 
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 

As are the frosty skies. 
Or this first snowdrop of the year 

That in my bosom lies. 
As these white robes are soil'd and dark. 

To yonder shining ground ;, 
As this pale taper's earthly spark, 

To yonder argent round : 
So shows my soul before the Lamb, 

My spirit before Thee ; 
So in mine earthly house I am, 

To that 1 hope to be. 
Break up the heavens, Lord! and far, 

Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
Draw me, thy bride, a^ glittering star, 

In raiment white and clean. 
He lifts me to the golden doors ; 

The flashes come and go; 
All heaven bursts her starry floor?, 

And strows her lights below, 
And deepens on and up ! the gates 

Roll back, and far within 
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, 

To make me pure uf ua. 



The sabbaths of Eternity, 

One sabbath deep and wide — 
A light upon the shining sea — 

The Bridegroom with his l)ride ! 

SIR GALAHAD. 

My good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten. 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, 

The horse and rider reel : 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

Aicid when tlie tide of combat stands, 
Perfume and flowers fall in shoAvers, 

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 
How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favours fall ! 
For them I battle till the end, 

To save froHi shame and thrall: 
But all my heart is drawn above, 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: 
I never felt the kiss of love, 

^'or maiden's hand in mine. 
More bounteous aspects on me beam, 

Me mightier transports move and tlirill; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 
When down the stormy crescent goes, 

A light before me swims. 
Between dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of hymns : 
Then by some secret shrine I ride ; 

I hear a voice, but none are there; 
The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 

The tapers burning fair. 
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 

The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 

And solemn chaunts resound between. 
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark ; 
I leap on board: no helmsman steers : 

I float till all is dark. 
A gentle sound, and awful light ! 

Three angels bear the holy Grail: 
With folded feet, in stoles o'f white, 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
Ah, blessed vision ! blood* of God! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
As down dark tides the glory slides. 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRIC IL MONOLOGUE. 



79 



And star-like mingles with the stars. 
When on my goodly charger borne 

Thro' dreaming towns I go, 
Tlie cock crows ere the Christmas morn, 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads, 

And,ringing, springs from brand and mail; 
But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 

And gilds the driving hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height ; 

1^0 1)ranchy thicket shelter yields ; 
But blessed forms in whistling storms 

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. 
A maiden knight — to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear"^ 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on you that Avill not cease, 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odours haunt my dreams ; 
And, stricken by an angel's hand. 

This mortal armour that I wear, 
This weight and size, this heart anc^ eyes, 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 
The clouds are broken in the sky, 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 

Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear: 
„0 just and faithful knight of God ! 

Ride on! the prize is near." 
So pass I liostel, hall, and grange ; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
AU-'irm'd I ride, whate'er betide, 

Until I find the holy Grail. 

EDWARD GRAY. 
SwEKT Emma Moreland of yonder town 

Met me walking on yonder way, 
./And have you lost your heart V" slie said, 

„ And are you married yet, Edward Gray?" 
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me : 

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 
,/Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more 

Can touch the heart of Edward Gray. 
r/Ellen Adair she loved me well, 

Against her fatner's and motlier's will : 
To-day I sat for an hour and wept. 

By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. 
vfShy she was, and I thought her cold ; 



Thought her proud, and fled over the sea • 
Eill'd 1 was with folly and spite. 

When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 
,; Cruel, cruel the words I said ! 

Cruelly came they back to-day -. 
'You're too slight aiad fickle,' I said, 

'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.' 
,;There I put my face in the grass — 

AVhisper'd, 'Listen to my despair : 
I repent me of all 1 did : 

Speak a little, Ellen Adair \" 
;,Then I took a pencil, and wrote 

On the mossy stone, as I lay, 
'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; 

And here the heart of Edw^ard Gray!" 
;/Love may come, and love may go. 

And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: 
But I will love no more, no more, 

Till Ellen Adair come back to me. 
^Bitterly wept I over the stone: 

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 
There lies the body of Ellen Adair! 

And there the heart of Edward Gray !' 

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL 
MONOLOGUE. 

MADE AT THE COCK. 

PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, 
To which I most resort, 

How goes the timer 'Tis five o'clock. 

Go fetch a pint of port : 
But let it not be such as that 

You set before chance-comers. 
But such whose father-grape grew fat 

On Lusitanian summers. 
No vain libation to the Muse , 

But may she still be kind, 
And w^hisper lovely words, and use 

Her influence on the mind. 
To make me write my random rhymes. 

Ere they be half-forgotten ; 
Nor add and alter, many times, 

Till all be ripe and rotten. 

1 pledge her, and she comes and dips 

Her laurel in the wine, 
And lays it thrice upon my lips, 

These favour'd lips of mine ; 
Until tlie charm have power to make 

New life])lood warm the bosom, 
And barren commonplaces break 

In full and kindly blossom. 



80 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LIRICAL MOXOLOGVE. 



I pledge her sileut at tlic board ; 

Her gradual lingers steal 
Andtoucli upou tlie master-chord 

Of all I felt aud feel. 
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, 

And phantom hopes assemble ; 
And that child's heart within the man's 

Begins to move and tremble. 

Thro' many an hour of summer suns, 

By many pleasant ways, 
Against its fountain upward runs 

The current of my days : 
I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd ; 

The gas light wavers dimmer, 
And softly, thro' a vinous mist, 

My college friendships glimmer. 
I grow in worth, and wit, aud sense, 

Unboding critic-pen, 
Or that eternal want of pence, 

"NA'hich vexes public men, 
"Who hold their hands to all, and cry 

Tor that which all deny them — 
T\"ho sweep the crossings, wet or dry. 

And all the world go by them. 
Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, 

Tho* fortune clip my wings, 
I will not cramp my heart, nor take 

Half- views men and things. 
Let AVhig and Tory stir their blood : 

There must he stormy weather; 
But for some true result of good 

All parties work together. 
Let there he thistles, there are grapes ; 

If old things, there are new : 
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes. 

Yet glimpses of the true. 
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, 

AVe lack not rhymes and reasons. 
As on this whirligig of Time 

We circle with'the seasons. 
This earth is rich in man and maid; 

AVith fair horizons bound : 
This whole wide earth of light and shade 

Comes out, a perfect round. 
High over roaring Temple-bar, 

And, set in Heaven's third story, 
1 look at all things as they are. 

But thro' a kind of glory. 



Head- waiter, honour'd by the guest 
Half -mused, or reeling ripe, 



The pint, you brought me, was the best 

That ever came from pipe. 
But tho' the port surpasses praise, 

My nerves have dealt with stiffer. 
Is there some magic in the place V 

Or do my peptics differ? 
lor since I came to live and learn, 

No pint of white or red 
Had ever half the power to turn 

This wheel within my head, 
T\'hich hears a season'd brain about, 

Unsubjectto confusion, 
Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out, 

Thro' every convolution. 
For I am of a numerous house, 

With many kinsmen gay, 
Where long and largely we carouse 

As who shall say me nay : 
Each month, a birth-day coming on. 

We drink defying trouble. 
Or sometimes two would meet in one, 

And then we drank it double ; 
Whether the vintage, yet unkept. 

Had relish fiery-new, 
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, 

As old as Waterloo ; 
Or stow'd (when classic Cunning died) 

In musty bins and chambers, 
Had cast upon its crusty side 

The gloom of ten Decembers. 
The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is ! 

She answer'dto my call, 
She changes with tha't mood or this. 

Is all-in-all to all : 
She lit the spark within my throat. 

To make my blood run quicker, 
Used allherhery will, and smote 

Her life into the liquor. 
And hence this halo lives about 

The waiter's hands, that reach 
To each his perfect pint of stout. 

His proper chop to eacii. 
He looks not like the common breed 

That with the napkin dally ; 
I think he came like Ganymede, 

From some delightful valley. 
The Cock was of a larger q^^ 

Than modern poultry drop, 
Stept forward on a firmer leg. 

And cramm'd a plumper crop: 
Upon an ampler dunghill trod, 

Crow'd lustier late and early. 



WILL WATERPROOFS LFRICJL 2I0N0L0GVE. 



81 



Sipt wine from silver, praising God, 

And raked in golden barley. 
A private liie was all his joy, 

Till ill accurtliesaAV 
A sometliing-pottle-bodied boy 

That knuckled at the taw : 
He stoop'd andclutch'dhim, fair and good, 

Flew over rocf and casement : 
His brothers of'he weather stood 

Stock-still for sheer amazement. 
But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire. 

And foilow'd With acclaims, 
A sign to many a staring shire 

Came crowing over Thames. 
Right down by smoky Paul's they bore, 

Till, where the street grows straiter. 
One fix'd for ever at the door. 

And one became head- waiter. 

But whither would my fancy go V 

How out of place she makes 
The violet of a legend blow 

Among the chops and steaks ! 
'Tisbut a steward of the can, 

One shade more plump than common ; 
As just and mere a serving-man 

As any, born of woman. 
I ranged too high : what draws me down 

Into the common day ? 
Is it the weight of that half-crown. 

Which I shall have to pay ? 
For, something duller than at first, 

jS^or wholly comfortable, 
1 sit (my empty glass reversed). 

And thrumming on the table: 
Half fearful that, with self at strife 

I take my self to task; 
Lest of thefullness of my life 

I leave an empty flask : 
For I had hope, by something rare, 

To prove myself a poet : 
But, while I plan and plan, my hair 

Is gray before I know it. 
So fares it since the years began, 

Till they be gather'd up; 
The truth, that flies the flowing can, 

Will haunt the vacant cup : 
And others' follies teach us not, 

i\ or much their wisdom teaches ; 
And most, of sterling worth, is what 

Our own experience preaches . 
All, let the rusty theme alone s' 



We know not what Ave know. 
But for ray pleasant hour, 'tis gone, 

'Tis gone, and let it go. 
'Tis gone .- a thousand such have slipt 

AAvay from my embraces. 
And fall'n into the dusty crypt 

Or darken'd forms and faces. 
Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went 

Long since, and came no more: 
With peals of genial clamour sent 

From many a tavern-door ; 
With tAvisted quirks and happy hits. 

From misty men of letters ; 
The tavern-hours of mighty wits — 

Thine elders and thy betters. 
Hours, when the Poet's Avords and looks 

Had yet their native glow : 
Nor yet the fear of little books 

Had made him talk for show ; 
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd 

He flash'd his random speeches ; 
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd 

His literary leeches. 
So mix for ever with the past. 

Like all good things on earth ! 
For should I prize thee, couldst thou last, 

At half thy real Avorth ? 
I hold it good, good things should pass ; 

AA'ith time I will not quarrel : 
It is but yonder empty glass 

That makes me maudlin-moral. 
Head-waiter of the chop-house here. 

To Avhich I most resort, 
I too must part : I hold thee dear 

For this good pint of port. 
For this, thou shalt from all things suck 

Marrow of mirth and laughter; 
And, Avheresoe'er thou move, good luck 

Shall fling her old shoe after. 
But thou wilt never move from hence, 

The sphere thy fate allots : 
Thy latter days increased with pence 

Go doAvn among the pots : 
Thoubattcnestby the greasy gleam 

In haunts of huno:ry sinners, 
Old boxes, larded Avith the steam 

Of thirty thousand dinners. 
We fret, ive fume, would shift our skins. 

Would quarrel with our lot ; 
Thy care is, under polish'd tins. 

To serve the hot-and-hot ; 
To €0Ea€ and go, and come again. 



LJBF CLARE. 



Returning like the pewit, 
And watcli'd by silent gentlemen, 

Tliat trifle witli the cruet. 
Live lon^, ere from thy topmost head 

Tlie thick-set hazel dies ; 
Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread 

The corners of thine eyes : 
Live long, nor feel in head or chest 

Our changeful equinoxes. 
Till mellow Death, like some late guest, 

Shall call thee from the boxes. 
But when he calls, and thou shalt cease 

To pace the gritted floor, 
And, laying down an unctuous lease 

Of life, shalt earn no more; 
]S'o carved cross bones, the types of Death. 

Shall show thee past to Heaven : 
But carved cross-pipes, and underneath 

A pint-pot neatly graven. 

TO—, 
vCursed be he that moves my bones." 

Shakespeare^ s Epitaph. 

You might have won the Poet's name, 
If such be worth the winning now, 
And gain'd a laurel for your brow 

Of sounder leaf than I can claim ; 

But you have made the wiser choice, 
A life that moves to gracious ends 
Thro' troops of unrecording friends, 

A deedful life, a silent voice: 

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom 
Of those that wear the Poet's crown : 
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown 

Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. 

lor now the Poet cannot die 
Nor leave his music as of old. 
But round him ere he scarce be cold 

Begins the scandal and the cry : 

,,Proclaini the faults he would not show : 
Break lock and seal : betray the trust : 
Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just 

The many-headed beast should know." 

Ah shameless ! for he did but sing 
A song that pleased us from its worth ; 
Xo public life was his on earth, 

!Xo blazon'd statesman he, nor king. 

Tie gave the people of his best : 

His worst he kept, his best he gave. 
My Shakespeare's curse on clown and 
(koave 



Who will not let his ashc& rest I / 
Who make it seem more sweet \Ji be 
The little life of bank and bner, 
The bird that pipes his lone desire 
And dies unheard Avithin his tree, 
Than he that warbles long and loud 
And drops at Glory's temiile-gates, 
Eor whom the carrion vulture waits 
To tear his heart before the crowd! 

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVILS IN GREECE. 

Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls 
Of water, sheets of summer glass, 
The long divine Peneian pass, 

The vast Akrokeraunian walls, 

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, 
With such a pencil, such a pen. 
You shadow forth to distant men, 

1 read and felt that I was there: 

xind trust me while I turn'd the page. 
And track'd you still on classic ground, 
I grew in gladness till I found 

My spirits in the golden age. 

For me the torrent ever pour'd 
And glisten'd — here and there alone 
The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown 

By fountain-urns ; — and Naiads oar'd 

A glimmering shoulder under gloom 
Of cavern pillars ; on the swell 
The silver lily heaved and fell ; 

And many a slope was rich in bloom 

From him that on the mountain lea 
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, 
To him who sat upon the rocks, 

And fluted to the morning sea. 

LADY CLARE. 
It was the time when lilies blow. 

And clouds are highest up in air, 
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 

To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 
I trow they did not part in scorn : 

Lovers long-betroth'd wtic they : 
They too will wed the morrow morn : 

God's blessing on the day! 
„He does not love me for my birth. 

Nor for my lands so broad and fair, 
He loves me for my own true worth, 

And that is well,'' said Lady Clare. 
In there came old A) ice the nurse. 



THE LOUD OF BVRLHIGH, 



83 



Said, „Who was this that went from thee?'^ 
„It was My cousin/' said Lady Clare, 

„To-morrow he weds with me." 
„0 God be thank'd !" said xilice the nurse, 

,/That all comes round so just and lair : 
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, 

And you are not the Lady Clare/' 
,yA.re ye out of your mind, my nurse, my 

(nurse?" 

Said Lady Cl;ire, „tliat ye speak so wild?" 
„As God's above." said xA-lice the nurse, 

,i\ speak the truth : you are my cliild. 
„The old Earl's daughter died at my breast; 

I speak the truth, as I live by bread ! 
I buried her like my own sweet child, 

And put my child in her stead." 
//Falsely, falsely have ye done 

mother," she said, „if this be true, 
To keep the best man under the sun 

So many years from his due." 
„Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 

,/But keep the secret for your life. 
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, 

When you are man and wife. " 
„If I'm a beggar born," she said, 

,/I will speak out, for I dare not lie. 
Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold, 

And fling the diamond necklace by." 
„lS^ay now, ray child," said Alice the nurse, 

„But keep the secret all ye can.,, 
She said, „]S'ot so : but I will know 

If there be any faith in man." 

,/Naynow, what faitli?" said Alicethe nurse, 

„The man will cleave unto his right." 
„And he shall have it," the lady replied, 

Tho' I should die to night." 
„Yet give one kiss to your mother dear ! 

„Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." 
,/0 mother, mother, mother,-' she said, 

7S0 strange it seems to me." 
., Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 

My mother dear, if this be so. 
And lay your hand upon my head, 

And bless me, mother, ere I go." 
She clad herself in a russet gown. 

She was no longer Lady Clare : 
She went by dale, and she went by down. 

With a single rose in her hair. 
The lily-white doeLord Ronald had brought 

Leapt up from where she lay, 



Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, 

And follow'd her all the way. 
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower : 

„0 Lady Clare, you shame your worth ! 
Why come you drest like a village maid, 

That are the flower of the earth?" 
,Jf I come drest like a village maid, 

I am but as my fortunes are : 
I am a beggar born," she said, 

,/And not the Lady Clare." 
„Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 

,..¥or I am yours in word and in deed. 
Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 

„ Your riddle is hard to read." 
and proudly stood she up! 

Her heart within her did Hot fail : 
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes. 

And told him all her nurse's tale. 
He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn ; 

/,He tumd andkiss'dher where she stood : 
„If you are not the heiress born, 

And I," said he, „the next in blood. 
„If you are not the heiress born. 

And I," said he, „the lawful heir, 
W^e two will wed to-morrow morn, 

And you shall still be Lady Clare." 

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 

In her ear he whispers gaily, 

If my heart by signs can teil. 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily. 

And I think thou lov'st me well." 
She replies, in accents fainter, 

„There is none I love like thee." 
He is but a landscape-painter. 

And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter. 

Presses his without reproof : 
Leads her to the village altar. 

And they leave her father's roof. 
,,1 can make no marriage present : 

Little can I give my wife. 
Love will make our cottage pleasant, 

And I love thee more than life." 
They by parks and lodges going 

See the lordly castles stand : 
Summer woods, about them blowing. 

Made a murmur in the land. 
From deep thought himself he rouses, 

Says to her that loves him well. 
,/Let us see these handsome houses 

Where the wealthy nobles dwell." 



STR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. 



84 

So she goes by him attended, 

Hears him lovingly converse, 
Sees whatever fair and splendid 

Lay betwixt his home and hers ; 
Parks with oak and chestnut shady. 

Parks and order'd gardens great, 
Ancient homes of lord and lady, 

Built for pleasure and for si;ate, 
All he shows her makes him dearer: 

Evermore she seems to gaze 
On that cottage growing nearer, 

Where they tw'ain will spend their days. 
but she will love him truly ! 

He shall have a cheerful home ; 
She will order all things duly, 

When beneath his roof they come. 
Thus her heart rejoices greatly, 

Till a gateway she discerns 
With armorial bearings stately, 

And beneath the gate she turns ; 
Sees a mansion more majestic 

Than all those she saw before ; 
Many a gallant gay domestic 

Bows before him at the door. 
And they speak in gentle murmur. 

When they answer to his call, 
While he treads with footstep firmer, 

Leading on from hall to hall. 
And, while now she wonders blindly, 

Nor the meaning can divine, 
Proudly turns he round and kindly, 

,/All of this is mine and thine." 
Here he lives in state and bounty. 

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, 
Not a lord in all the county 

Is so great a lord as he. 
All at once the colour flushes 

Her sweet face from brow to chin : 
As it were with shame she blushes, 

And her spirit changed within. 
Then her countenance all over 

Pale again as death did prove : 
But he clasp'd her like a lover. 

And he cheer'd her soul with love. 
So she strove against her weakness, 

Tho' at times her spirit sank: 
Shaped her heart with woman's meekness 

To all duties of her rank : 
And a gentle consort made he, 

And her gentle mind was such 
That she grew a noble lady, 

And the people loved her much. 
But a trouble weigh'd upon her. 

And perplex'd her, night and morn, 



With the burthen of an honour / 

Unto which she was not born. , 
Faint she grew, and ever fainter, 

And she murmur'd, ,/Oh, that he 
AVere once more that landscape-painter. 

Which did win my heart from me '.'• 
So she droop 'd and droop'd before him, 

Fadino; slowly from his side : 
Three fair children first she bore liim. 

Then before her time she cZied. 
Weeping, weeping late and early, 

Walking up and pacing down, 
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 

Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. 
And he came to look upon her, 

x\nd he look'd at her and said, 
„Bring the dress and put it on her. 

That she wore when she was wed." 
Then her people, softly treading. 

Bore to earth her body, drest 
In the dress that she was wed in. 

That her spirit might have rest. 

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUI- 
NEVERE. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Like souls that balance joy and pain, 
With tears and smiles from heaven again 
The maiden Spring upon the plain 
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. 

In crystal vapour everywhere 
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, 
And far, in forest-deeps unseen, 
The topmost elmtree gather'd green 

From draughts of balmy air. 
Sometimes the linnet piped his song; 
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong : 
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, 
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong: 

By grassy capes with fuller sound 
In curves the yellowing river ran, 
And drooping chestnut-buds began 
To spread into the perfect fan. 

Above the teeming ground. 
Then, in the boyhood of the year. 
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer. 
With blissful treble ringing clear. 

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring; 
A gown of grass-green silk she wore, 
Buckled with golden clasps before, 
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore 

Closed in a golden ring. 



THE VISION OF SIN. 



85 



Now on some twisted ivy-net, 

Now by some tinkling rivulet, 

In mosses n\ixt with violet 

Her cream-white mule his pastern set : 

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains 
Than she whose elfin prancer springs 
By night to eery warblings, 
When all the glimmeringnioorland rings 

With jingling bridle-reins. 
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, 
The happy winds upon her play'd, 
Blowing the ringlet from the braid : 
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd 

The rein wilh dainty finger-tips, 
A man had given all other bliss, 
And all his worldly worth for this, 
To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
Upon her perfect lips. 

A FAREWELL. 
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea ; 

Thy tribute wave deliver: 
No more by thee my steps shall be, 

For ever and for ever. 
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet then a river : 
No where by thee my steps shall be, 

For ever and for ever. 
But here will sigh thine alder tree, 

x\nd here thine aspen shiver ; 
And here by thee will hum the bee, 

For ever and for ever. . 
A thousand suns will stream on thee, 

A thousand moons will quiver: 
But not by thee my steps shall be. 

For ever and for ever. 

THE BEGGAR MAID. 
Heb. arms across her breast she laid ; 

She was more fair than words can say : 
Bare-footed came the beggar maid 

Before the king Cophetua. 
In robe and crown the king stept down, 

To meet and greet her on her way ; 
,,It is no wonder," said the lords, 

„She is more beautiful than day." 
As shinesthe moon in clouded skies, 

She in her poor attire was seen : 
One praised her ancles, one her eyes. 

One her dark hair and lovesome mien. 
So sweet a face, such angel grace, 

In all that land had never been : 
Cophetua sware a royal oath : 



,/This beggar maid shall be my queen !'- 

THE V I S I N F S I N. 

I. 
I HAD a vision wlien the night was late; 
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. 
He rode a horse with wings,that wouldhave 

(flown. 
But that his heavy rider kept him down. 
And from the palace came a child of sin, 
And took him by the curls, and let him in, 
Where sat a company with heated eyes, 
Expecting when a fountain should arise : 
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips — 
zis when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, 
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and 

(capes — 
Suffused them, sitting, lying,languid shapes, 
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and 

(piles of grapes. 

II. 
Then methought I heard a mellow sound, 
Gathering up from all the lower ground ; 
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled 
Low voluptuous music winding trembled, 
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sieh'd, 
Panted hand in hand with faces pale. 
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied; 
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide 
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail; 
Then the music touch'd the gates and died; 
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, 
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; 
Till tlironging in and in, to where they 

(waited, 
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale. 
The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd 

(and palpitated, 
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound. 
Caught the sparkles, and in circles. 
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, 
Flung the torrent rainbow round : 
Then they started from their places. 
Moved with violence, changed in hue, 
Caught each other with wild grimaces. 
Half-invisible to the view, 
Wheeling with precipitate paces 
To the melody, till they flew, 
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, 
Twisted hard in fierce embraces. 
Like to Furies, like to Graces, 
Dash'd together in blinding dew : 
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony, 
The nerve-dissolving melody 



86 



THE VISION OF SIN. 



Flutter'd headlong; from the sky. 

III. 
And then I look'd up toward a mountain- 

(tract, 
Tliat girt the region with high cliff and lawn 
1 saw that every morning, far withdrawn 
Eeyond the darkness and the cataract, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn, 
Unheeded : and detaching, fold hy fold, 
From those still heights, and, slowly draw- 

(ingnear, 
A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold. 
Came floating on for many a month and year, 
Unheeded: and I thought I would have spo- 

(ken, 
And warn'd that madman ere it grewtoolate: 
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was 

(broken, 
When that cold vapour touch'd the palace 

(gate, 
And link'd again 1 saw within my head 
A grey and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 
Who 'slowly rode across a wither'd heath, 
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said : 

IV. 

,/ Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin ! 

Here is custom come your way; 
Take my brute, and lead him in, 

Stuif his ribs with mouldy hay. 
,yBitter barmaid, waning fast ! 

See that sheets are on my bed ; 
Wliat ! the flower of life is past : 

It is long before you wed. 
„ Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, 

At the Dragon on the heath I 
Let us have a quiet hour. 

Let us hob-and-nob with Death. 
1,1 am old, l)ut let me drink ; 

Bring me spices, bring me wine, 
I remember, when I think, 

That my youth was half divine. 
,/Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, 

Wlien a blanket wraps the day, 
When the rotten woodland drips, 

And the leaf is starap'd in clay. 
„Sit thee down, and have no shame. 

Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee : 
What care 1 for any name ? 

What for order or degree? 
,/Let me screw thee up a peg: 

Let me loose thy tongue with wine: 
Callest thou that'thintr a leg'r 



Which is thinnest ? thine or miae ? 
//Thou shalt not be saved by works: 

Thou hast been a sinner too : 
Buin'd trunks on wither'd forks. 

Empty scarecrows, I and you ! 
„Fill the cup, and fill the can; 

Have a rouse before the morn : 
Every moment dies a man. 

Every moment one is born. 
,/ We are men of ruin'd blood ; 

Therefore comes it we are wise. 
Fish are we that love the mud. 

Rising to no fancy-flies. 
„]S"ame and fame! to fly sublime 

Thro' the courts, the camps, tlie scliools, 
Is to be the ball of Time, 

Bandied by the hands of fools, 
,/Friendship ! — to be two in one — 

Let the canting liar pack ! 
Well I know, wlien I am gone, 

How she mouths behind my back. 
^/Virtue ! — to be good and just — 

Every heart, when sifted well. 
Is a clot of warmer dust, 

Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. 
r/0 ! we two as well can look 

Whited thought and cleanly life 
As the priest, above his book 

Leering at his neighbour's wife. 
,/Fill the cup, and fill the can : 

Have a rouse before the moni: 
Every moment dies a man. 

Every moment one is born. 
,,Drink, and let the parties rave : 

They are fill'd with idle spleen-, 
Rising, falling, like a wave, 

Forthey know not what they mean. 
,;IIe that roars for liberty 

Faster binds a tyrant's power: 
And the tyrant's cruel glee 

Forces on the freer hour. 
,/Fill the can, and fill the cup: 

All the windy ways of men 
Are but dust that rises up, 

And is lightly laid again. 
,/Greet her with applausive breath. 

Freedom, gaily doth she tread: 
In her right a civic wreath, 

In her left a human head. 
„yo, I love not what is new; 



THE VISION OF SIN. 



87 



She is of an ancient house; 
And I tliink we know the hue 

Of that cap upon her brows. 
Let lier go ! her thirst she slakes 

Where the bloody conduit runs: 
Then her sweetest meal she makes 

On the tirst-born of her sons. 
„Drink to lofty hopes that cool — 

Visions of a perfect State : 
Drink we, last, the public fool, 

Frantic love and frantic hate. 
,; Chant me now some wicked stave, 

Till thy drooping courage rise, 
And the glow-worm of the grave 

Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. 
.,Fear not thou to loose thy tongue 

Set thy hoary fancies free; 
What is loathsome to the young 

Savours well to thee and me. 
„ Change, reverting to the years. 

When thy nerves could understand 
What there is in loving tears. 

And the warmih of hand in hand. 
„Tell me tales of thy lirst love — 

April hopes, the fools of chance ; 
Till the graves begin to move. 

And the dead begin to dance. 
„Fill the can, and fill the cup : 

All the windy ways of men 
Are but dust that rises up, 

And is lightly laid again. 
,7Trooping from their mouldy dens 

The chap-fallen circle spreads : 
AVelcome, fellow-citizens. 

Hollow hearts and emply heads ! 
„You are bones, and what of that V 

Every face, however full. 
Padded round with flesh and fat. 

Is but modell'd on a skull. 
../Death is king, and Vivat Rex ! 

Tread a measure on the stones, 
Madam — if I know your sex, 

From the fashion of your bones. 
,/No, I cannot praise the fire 

In your eye — nor yet your lip : 
k\\ tlie more do I admire 

Joints 01" cunning workmanship. 
■,Lo ! God's likeness — the ground-plan — 

Neither modell'd, glazed, or framed : 
^uss me, tliou rough sketch of man. 



Far too naked to be shamed I 
,,Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, 

While we keep a little breath ! 
Drink to heavy Ignorance ! 

Hob-and-nob with brotlier Death! 
„Thou art mazed, the night is long, 

And the longer night is near : 
What ! I am not all as wrong 

As a bitter jest is dear. 
„ Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, 

When the lock are crisp and curl'd ; 
Unto me my maudlin gall 

And my mockeries of the world? 
,/Fill the cup, and All the can ! 

Mingle madness, mingle scorn! 
Dregs of life, and lees of man : 

Yet we will not die forlorn." 

V. 

The voice graw faint: there came a further 

(change: 
Once more uprose the mystic mountain- 

(range: 
Below were men and horses pierced with 

(worms. 
And slowly quickening into lower forms ; 
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of 

"^(dross, 
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with 

(moss. 
Then someone spake: „Behold! it was a 

( crime 
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with 

time." 
Another said: ,/Tlie crime of sense I'ecame 
The crime of malice, and is equal blame." 
And one: -/He had not wholly quench'd his 

(power; 
A little grain of conscience raadehimsour." 
At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?" 
To which an answer peal'd from that high 

(land, 
But in a tongue no man could understand; 
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. 

Come not, when I am dead, 

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, 
To trample round my fallen head. 
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst 
(not save. 
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; 
But thou, go by. 



88 



MAUB. 



Child, if it were thine error or tliy crime 
I care no louger, heing all unblest: 

Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time. 
And 1 desire to rest. 

Pass on, weak heartjand leave me where I lie: 
Go by, go by. 

THE EAGLE. 

rKAGMENT. 

He clasps the crag with hooked hands; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
King'd with the azure world, he stands. 
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ; 
He watclies from his mountain walls ; 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 



Move eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset waning slow: 

From fringes of the faded eve, 
0, happy planet, eastward go; 

Till over thy dark shoulder glow 
Thy silver sister-world, and rise 
To glass herself in dewy eyes 

That watch me from the glen below. 

Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne, 
Dip forward under stan-y light, 

And move me to my mariage-morn, 
And round again to happy night. 



Beeak, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones. Sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 



well for the fislierman's boy, 

That he shouts witli liis sister at play ! 
well for the sailor lad. 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 
And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, Sea, 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

AVill never come back to me. 



THE POET'S SONG. 

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose. 

He pass'd by the down and out of the street 
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun , 

Attd waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
And he sat him down in a lonely place. 

And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud. 

And the lark drop down at his feet. 
The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 

The snake slipt under a spray, 
The wild hawk stood with the down on his 

(beak, 

And stared, with his fool on the prey, 
And the nightingale thought, „I have sung 

(many songs, 

But never a one so gay. 
For he sings of what the world will be 

When the years have died away." 



MAUD. 
I. I. 

I Hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, 
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, 
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood. 
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers „Death." 

II. 
For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, 
His who had given me' life — father! God! was it well? — 
Mangled, and llatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into tlie ground: 
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. 

III. 
Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd, 
And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair. 
And out he walk'd Avhen the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, 
And the flying gold of the ^diu'd woodlands drove thro' the air. 

IV. 

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd 

By a shuffled step, by a d-j^^d weight trail'd, b.y a whisper 'd fright, 



MAVT). f 

And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 

V. 

Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all. 
Not he'; his honest fame should at least by me be maintained; 
But that old man , now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us liaccid and drain'd. 

VI. 

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse. 

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own; 

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse 

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? 

Wii. 
But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, 
When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word? 
Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. 

VIII. 

Sooner or later I too may passively take the print 

Of the golden age — why not? I have neither hope nor trust ; 

May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint. 

Cheat and be cheated, and die; who knows? we are ashes and dust. 

IX. 

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by. 
When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like .swine. 
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; 
Peace in her vineyard — yes! — but a company forges the wine. 

X. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head. 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, 
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, 
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life. 

XI. 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villainous centre-bits 
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights. 
While another is cheating the sick of a few last gaps, as he sits 
To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights. 

XII. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, 
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, 
Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea, 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 

XIII, 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill. 
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, 
That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter and till, 
And strike, if he could, were it but "with his cheating yardwand, home. — 

XIV. 

What! am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood? 
Must / too creep to the hollow and dash myself down and die 
Rather than hold by the law that 1 made, nevermore to brood 
On a horror of shatter'd limbs and a wretched swindler's lie? 

XV. 

Would there be sorrow for rae? there was love in the passionate shriek, 



90 MAVD. 

Love for the silent thing that had made false haste to the grave — 
Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he wonld rise and speak 
And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to rave. 

XVI. 

I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the mail 
"Why should I stay? can a sweeter chance ever come to me here? 
0, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves of pain, 
Were it not wise if I fled from the place and the pit and the fear? 

XVII. 

Workmen up at the Hall! — they are coming back from abroad; 
The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionnaire; 
1 have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud ; 
I play'd with the girl when a child; she promised then to be fair. 

XVIII. 

Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, 
Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall, 
Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes, 
Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all, — 

XIX. 

What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse. 
]Vo, there is fatter game on the moor; she will let me alone. 
Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the worse. 
I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil may pipe to his own. 

Long have I sigh'd for a calm: God grant I may find it at last! 

It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savour nor salt. 

But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past, 

Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault? 

All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen) 

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 

Dead perfeetion, no more; nothing more, if it had nut been 

For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect of the rose, 

Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too full, 

Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose, 

From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen. 

III. 
Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek. 
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drown'd, 
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek, 
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound; 
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before 
Growing and fading and growing upon me without a sound, 
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could hear it no more, 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden ground, 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung ship-wrecking roar, 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragg'd down by the wave, 
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found 
The shining dafi'odil dead, and Orion low in his grave. 

IV. I. 
A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime 
la the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore cannot I be 
Like things of the season gav, like the bountiful season bland. 



MAUD, 

'>viieii the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime, 
Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea, 
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land? 

II. 
Eelow me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small ! 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite ; 
And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar; 
And here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the Hall; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light; 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star! 

III. 
When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race? 
1 met her to-day with her brother, but not to her brother I bow'd: 
I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor; 
But the iire of a foolish pride flash'd over her beautiful face. 

child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud; 
Your father has -wealth w^ell-gotten, and I am nameless and poor. 

IV. 

1 keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal; 
I know it, and smile a hard set smile, like a stoic, or like 

A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way : 

lor natiu'e is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ; 

The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike. 

And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 

V. 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her tiower : 

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game 

That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed 

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour ; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 

VI. 

A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, 
lor him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, 
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race. 
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, 
So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man: 
He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too base? 

VII. 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain, 
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor; 
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into folly and vice. 
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain; 
lor not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more 
Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden of spice. 

VIII. 

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil. 

Wlio knows the ways of the w^orld, how God will bring them about? 

Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide. 

Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a Hungary fall? 

Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with knout? 

I have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. 

IX. 

Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways. 



92 MAUD. 

Where if I cannoc be gay let a passionless peace be my lot. 

Far-off from tlie clamour of liars belied in the hubbub of lies; 

From the long-neck 'cl geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise 

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not, 

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous Hies, 

X. 

And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love, 
The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill. 
Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife. 
Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above •, 
Your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will; 
You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life. 
\. I. 

A VOICE by the cedar tree, 

In the meadow under the Hall ! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial son^ like a trumpet's call ! 

Singing alone in the morning of life. 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array, 

Ready in heart and ready in hand. 

March with banner and bugle and fife 

To the deatli, for their native land. 



Maud with her exquisite face, 

And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, 

And feet like sunny gems on an English 

(green, 
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, 
Singing of Death, and of Honour that can- 

(not die, 
Till 1 well could weep for a time so sordid 

(and mean. 
And myself so languid and base. 

III. 
Silence, beautiful voice 
Be still, for you only trouble the mind 
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 
A glory I shall not find. 
Still ! 1 will bear you no more. 
For your sweetness hardly leaves me achoice 
But to move to the meadow and fall before 
Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 
;Xot her, who is neither courtly nor kind, 
Not her, not her, but a voice. 

VI. I. 
MoENiNG arises stormy and pale, 
No sun, but a wannish glare 
In fold upon fold of hueless cloud, 
And the budded peaks of the wood are bowd 
Caught and cuft'd by the gale : 
I had fancied it would be fair. 



Whom but Maud should I meet . 

Last night, when the sunset burn'd \ 

On the blossom'd gable-ends ' 

At the head of the vilage street, 

Whom but Maud sliould I meet? 

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so 

(sweet 
She made me divine amends 
For a courtesy not return'd. 



xind thus a delicate spark 

Of glowing and growing light 

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams, 

Ready to burst in a colour'd flame; 

Till at last when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 

IV. 

What if with her sunny hair, 

And smile as sunny as cold, 

She meant to weave me a snare 

Of some coquettish deceit, 

Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met, 

To have her lion roll in a silken net 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 

V. 

Ah, what shall I be at fifty 

Should Nature keep me alive. 

If I find the world so bitter 

When I am but twenty-five V 

Yet, if she were not a cheat. 

If Maud were all that she seem'd, 

And her smile were all that I dream'd, 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 

VI. 

What if tho' her eye seem'd full 
Of a kind intent to me, 
^ What if that dandy-despot, he, 



jMJUD. 



93 



That jeweird mass of millinery, 
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and of insolence, 
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof, 
Who wants the liner politic sense 
To mask, tho' but in his own hehoof, 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn — 
What if he had told her yestermorn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 
A. face of tenderness might be feign'd. 
And a moist mirage in desert eyes. 
That so, when the rotten hustings shake 
In another month to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd, 

VII. 

For a raven ever croaks, at my side. 

Keep watch and ward,keep watch and ward, 

Or thou wilt prove their tool. 

Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 

For often a man's own angry pride 

Is cap and hells for a fool. 

VIII. 

Perhaps the smile and tender tone 
Came out of her pitying womanhood, 
For am I not, am I not, here alone 
So many a summer since she died. 
My mother, who was so gentle and good? 
Living alone in an empty house. 
Here half-hid in the gleaming wood, 
Where I hear the dead at midday moan. 
And the shrieking rush of the wainscot 

(mouse, 
And my own sad name in corners cried. 
When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 
About its echoing chambers wide, 
Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 
Of a world in which I have hardly mixt. 
And a morbid eating lichen fixt 
On a heart half-turn'd to stone. 

IX. 

heart of stone, are you flesh and caught 
By that you swore to withstand? 

For what was it else within me wrought 
• But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasured splend«ur, her 

(hand, 
Come sliding out of her sacred glove, 
And the sunlight broke from her lip? 

X. 

1 have play'd with her when a child ; 
She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I nunj be beguiled 
By some coquettish deceit. 



Yet, if she were not a cheat. 
If Maud were all that she seem*d, 
And her smile had all that I dream'd, 
Then the world were not so bitter 
But a smile could make it sweet. 

VII. I. 
Did I hear it half in a doze 

Long since, I know not where? 
Did I dream it an hour ago. 

When asleep in this arm-chair ? 
II. 
Men were drinking together. 

Drinking and talking of me ; 
,,W^ell, if it prove a girl, the boy 

Will have plenty : so let it be. " 
III. 
It is an echo of something 

Read with a boy's delight, 
Viziers nodding together 

In some xirabian night ? 

IV. 

Strange, that I hear two men, 

Somewhere talking of me ; 
,;Well, if it prove a girl, my boy 

Will have plenty : so let it be. 
VIII. 
She came to the village church. 
And sat by a pillar alone ; 
An angel watching an urn 
Wept over her, carved in stone -, 
And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 
xind suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 
To lind they were met by my own ; 
And suddenly, sweetly, my heart heat 

(stronger 
And thicker, until I heard no longer 
The snowy-banded, dilettante, 
/ Delicate-handed priest intone ; 
And thought, is it pride, and mused and 

(sigh'd 
„No surely, now it cannot be pride." 

I WAS walking a mile. 

More than a mile from the shore, 

Thesunlook'd out with a smile 

Betwixt the cloud and the moor, 

And riding at set of day 

Over the dark moor land. 

Rapidly riding far away, 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were two at her side. 
Something flash'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride 
In a moment they were gone : 



94 



MAC]). 



Like a sudden spark 
Struck vaiuly in the night, 
Then returns the dark 
With no more hope of light. 

X. I. 
Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread ? 
Was not one of the two at her side 
This new-made lord, whose splendour 

(plucks 
The slavish hat from the villager's head ? 
Whose old grant-father has lately died, 
Gone to a blacker pit, for whom 
Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks 
And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom 
Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine 
Master of half a servile shire, 
And left his coal all turn'd into gold 
To a grandson, first of his noble line, 
Uich in the grace all women desire, 
Strong in the power that all men adore. 
And simper and set their voices lower, 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine, 
Seeing his gewgaw castle shine, 
Ts^'ew as his title, built last year. 
There amid perky larches and pine. 
And over the sullen purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear. 

II. 
What, has he found my jewel out ? 
1 or one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he : 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe would her brother's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt. 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape, 
A bought commission, a waxen face, 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought ? what is it he cannot buy ? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base, 
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry, 
xit war with myself and a wretched race, 
Sick, sick to the heart of life, am 1. 

III. 
Last week came one to the county town, 
To preach our poor little army down, 
And play the game of the despot kings, 
Tho ' the state has done it and thrice as well: 
This broad-brimm'd hawker of holy things. 
Whose ear is cramm'd with his cotton, and 

(rings 
Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. 
This huckster put down war? can he tell 
Whether war be a cause or a consequence? 



Put down yie passions tliat make earthHelll 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride, 
Jealousy, down i cut off from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
Down too, down at your own fireside, 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
Tor each is at war with mankind. 

IV. 

I wish I could hear again 

The chivalrous battle-song 

That she warbled alone in her joy ! 

I might persuade myself then 

She would not do herself this great wrong, 

To take a wanton dissolute boy 

For a man and leader of men. 

V, 

Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand. 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
For ever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever they call him, what care 1, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat-one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 

VI. 

And ah for a man to arise in me, 
That the man I am may cease to be ! 

XI. I. 

LET the solid ground. 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

W^hat some have found so sweet ; 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 

II. 
Let the sweet heavens endure, 

Not close and darken above me 
Before I am quite quite sure 

That there is one to love me ; 
Then let come what come may 
To a life that has been so sad, 
I shall have had my day. 

XII. I. 
Birds in the high Hall-garden 

When twilight was falling, 
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 

They were crying and calling. 
11. 
Where was Maud? in our wood ; 

And I, who else, was with her 
Gathering woodland lilies. 

Myriads blow together. 
III. 
Birds in our wood sang 



MAUD. 



95 



Ringing thro the rallies, 
Maud is here, here, liere 
In among the lilies, 

IV. 

I kiss'd her slender hand. 

She took the kiss sedately; 
Maud is not seventeen, 

But she is tall and stately. 

V. 

I to cry out on pride 
Who have won her favour ! 

Maud were sure of Heaven 
If lowliiiess could save her. 

VI. 

1 know the way she went 

Home with her maiden posy, 
For her feet have touch'd the meadows 
And left the daisies rosy. 

VII. 

Birds in the high Hall-garden 
Were crying and calling to her, 

Where is Maud, Maud, Maud, 
One is come to woo her. 

VIII. 

Look, a horse at the door. 

And little King Charley snarling, 
Go hack, my lord, across the moor^ 
You are not her darling. 
XIII. I. 
Scokn'd, to be scorn'd by one that 1 scorn, 
Is that a matter to make me fret ? 
That a calamity hard to be borne ? 
Well, he may live to hate me yet. 
Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 
1 past him, I was crossing his lands ; 
He stood on the path a little aside ; 
His face, as I grant, in spite of spite, 

i^Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and 

^ (white. 
And six feet two, as I think, he stands ; 
But his essences turn'd the live air sick, 
x\nd barbarous opulence jewel-thick 
Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. 

II. 
Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so heartily then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship ; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
Stopt, and then with a riding whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, 
And curving a contumelious lip, 
"iorgonised me from head to foot 
With a atony British stare. 



III. 



Why sits he here in his father's chair? 
That old man never comes to his place : 
Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen r 
For only once, in the village street, 
Last year, I caught a glimpse of his f;-ice, 
A gray old wolf and a lean. 
Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat; 
For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, 
She might by a true descent be untrue ; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet : 
Tlio' I fancy her sweetness only due 
To tlie sweeter l)lood by the other side 
Her mother has been a thing complete, 
However she came to be so allied, 
xind fair without, faithful witliin, 
Maud to liim is nothing akin : 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her motlier, 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of tliu race, 
All, all upon the brother. 

IV. 

Peace, angi'y spirit, and let him be! 
Has not his sister smiled on me? 

XIV. I. 
Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on a lawn ; 
There she walks in her state 
And tends upon bed and bower. 
And thither I climb'd at dawn 
And stood by her garden-gate ; 
A lion ramps at the top. 
He is claspt by a passion-flower. 

II. 
Maud's own little oak-room 
Which Maud, like a precious stone 
Set in the heart of the carven gloom, 
Lights with herself, when alone 
She sits by her music and books. 
And her brother lingers late 
With a roysteriug company) looks 
Upon Maud's own garden-gate: 
And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white 
As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 
On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 
Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, 

(to glide, 
Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down 

(to my side. 
There were but a step to be made, 

III. 
The fancy flatter'd my mind, 
And a^-ain seem'd overbold : 



MAUD 



Xow I thought that she cared for rae, 
Now I thought she was kind 
Only because she was cold. 

IV, 

I heard no sound where I stood 
But the rivulet on from the lawn 
Running down to my own dark wood ; 
Or the voice of the long sea-waveas it s well'd 
NoAv and then in the dim-gray dawn; 
But I loo]:'d, and round, all round the house 

(I beheld 
The death- white curtain drawn ; 
I elt a horror over me creep, 
Prickle my skin and catch my breath, 
Knew that the death-white curtain meant 

(but sleep, 
Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of 

(the sleep of death, 

XV. 
So dark a mind within me dwells, 

And I make myself such evil cheer: 
T'nat if Jbe dear 'to some one else, 

Then some one else may have much to fear; 
But if /be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 
Shall I not take care of all that I think. 
Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 

If I be dear, 

If I be dear to some one else. 
XVI. I. 
This lump of earth has left his estate 
The lighter by the loss of his weight; 
And so that he find what he went to seek, 
And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 
His heart iu the gross mud-honey of town, 
He may stay for a year who has gone for a 

(week : 
But this is the day when I must speak, 
And I see my Oread coming down, 
this is the day! 

beautiful creature, what am I 
That I dare to look her way ; 
Tliink I may hold dominion sweet, 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, 
And dream of her beauty with tender dread, 
From the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and light as the 

(crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, 
And she knows it not : 0, if she knew it, 
To know her beauty might half undo it 

1 know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime, 



Perhaps from a selfish grave. 

IT." 

What, if she be fasten'd to this fool lord. 
Bare I bid her abide by her word ? 
Should 1 love her so well if she 
Had given her word to a thing so low? 
Shairi love her as well if she 
Can break her word were it even for me? 
I trust that it is not so. 
III. 
Catch not my breath, clamorous heart. 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye. 
For I must tell her before we part, 
1 must tell her, or die. 
XVII. 
Go not, happy day. 

From the shining fields, 
Go not, happy day, 

Till the maiden yields. 
Eosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips. 
Pass and blush the news 
O'er the blowing ships. 
Over blowing seas. 
Over seas at rest, 
Pass the happy news. 

Blush it thro' the West ; 

Till the red man dance 

By his red cedar tree, 

And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 

Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 
And a rose her mouth. 
XVIII. I. 
I have led her home, my love, my only friend. 
There is none like her, none. 
And never yet so warmly ran my blood 
And sweetly, on and on 
Calming itself to the loDg-wish*d-for end, 
Full to the banks,closeon the promised good. 

II. 
None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tougued laurels' patterinfi 
(talk 



MAUD. 



97 



Seeni'd her light foot along the garden walk, 
And shook my heart to think she comes once 

(more ; 
But even then I lizard her close the door, 
The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is 

(gone. 

III. 
There is none like her, none. 
Nor will be when our summers have de- 

(ceased. 
0, art thou sighing for Lebanon 
In the long breeze that streams to thy deli- 

(cious East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 
Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here in- 

(creased. 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair, 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air, 
And haunted by the starry head 
Ofherwhosegentlewillhas changed my fate, 
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 
And over whom thy darkness most have 

(spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb '"d Eve from whom 

(she came. 

IV. 

Here will I lie, whily these long branches 

(sway, 
And you fair stars that crown a happy day 
Go in and out as if at merry play, 
Who am no more so all forlorn. 
As when it seem'd far better to be born 
To labour and the mattock-harden'd hand. 
Than nursed at ease and brought to under- 

(stand 
A sad astrology, the boundless plan 
That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, 
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, 
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 
His nothingness into man, 

V. 

But now shine on, and what care I, 
Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 
The countercharm of space and hollow sky 
And do accept my madness, and would die' 
To save from some slight shame one simple 
(girl. ^ 

VI. 

Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may 

(give 
Mor life to Love than is or ever was 



' In our low world,where yet 'tis sweet to live. 
Let no one ask me how "it came to pass : 
It seems that I am happy, that to me 
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 
A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 

A'll. 

Not die; but live a life of truest breath, 
And teach true life to fis:ht with mortal 

(wrongs. 
0, why should Love, like men in drinking- 

(sono;s, 

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death? 

Make answer, Maud my bliss, 

Maud made my Maud'by that long lover's 

(kiss. 
Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this ? 
„The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself 

(more dear." 

VIII. 

Is that enchanted moan only tlie swell 
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay ? 
And hark the clock within, the silver knell 
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal 

(white. 
And died to live, long as my pulses play ; 
But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stol'n 

(away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies 

(dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothingthere-'hermaiden grace affright! 
Dear heart, Ifeel with thee the drowsy spell. 
My bride to be, my evermore delight, 
My own heart heart's and ownest own fare- 

(well ; 
It is but for a little space I go : 
And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 
Beat to the noiseless music of the night! 
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 
Of your soft splendours that you look so 

(bright? ^ 

1 have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 
Beat,happy stars, timing with things below, 
Beat with my heart more blest than heart 

(can tell. 
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 
That seems to draw— but it shall not be so : 
Let all be well, be well. 

XIX. I. 
Her brother is coming back to-night ; 
Breaking up my dream of delight. 



98 



MAUD. 



My dream ? do I dream of bliss? 
I have walk'd awake with Truths 

when did a morning shine 
So rich in atonement as this 
For my dark-dawning youth. 
Darken'd watching a mother decline 
And that dead man at her heart and mine : 
For who was left to watch her but 1 ': 

Yet so did I let my freshness die. 
III. 

1 trust that I did not talk 
To gentle Maud in our walk 
(For often in lonely wanderings 

I have cursed him even to lifeless things) 

But I trust that I did not talk, 

Not touch on her father's sin : 

I am sure I did but speak 

Of my mother's faded cheek 

"VMien it slowly grew so thin, 

That I felt she was slowly dying 

Vext with lawyers and harassed with debt : 

ForhowoftenI caught her with eyes all wet, 

Shaking her head at her son and sighing 

A world of trouble within ! 

IV. 

And Maud too, Maud was moved 

To speak of the mother she loved 

As one scarce less forlorn, 

Dying abroad and it seems apart 

From him who had ceased to share her heart. 

And ever mourning over the feud, 

The household Fury sprinkled with blood 

By which our houses are torn : 

How strange was what she said, 

"When only Maud and the brother 

Hung over her dying bed — 

That Maud's dark father and mine 

Had bound us one to the other, 

Betrothed us over their wine, 

On the day when Maud w^as born ; 

Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. 

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death, 

Mine, mine — our fathers have sw^orn, 

V. 

But the true blood spilt had in it a heat 
To dissolve the precious seal on a bond. 
That, if left uncaucell'd, had been so swxet : 
And none of us thought of a something 

(beyond, 
A desire that awoke in the heart of the child, 
As it were a duty done to the tomb, 
To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled ; 
And I was cursing them and my doom, 



And letting a dangerous thought run wild 
While often abroad in the fragrant gloom 
Of foreign churches — I see her there, 
Bright English lily, breathing a prayer 
To be friends, to be reconciled ! 

VI. 

But then what a flint is he ! 

Abroad, at Florence, at Rome, 

I find whenever she touch'd on me 

This brother had laugh'd her down, 

And at last, "when each came home, 

He had darken'd into a frown, 

Chid her, and forbid her to speak 

To me, her friend of the years before ; 

And this was what had redden'dher cheek 

When I bow'd to her on the moor. 

VII. 

Yet Maud, altho* not blind 

To the faults of his heart and mind, 

I see she cannot but love him, 

xind says he is rough but kind, 

And wishes me to approve him. 

And tells me, when she lay 

Sick once, with a fear of worse, 

That he left his wine and horses and play, 

Sat with her, read to her night and day, 

And tended her like a nurse. 

VIII. 

Kind ? but the deathbed desire 
Spurn'd by this heir of the liar — 
Rough but kind? yet I know 
He has plotted against me in this, 
That he plots against me still. 
Kind to Maud? that were not amiss. 
Well, rough but kind ; why let it be so : 
For shall not Maud have her will r 

IX. 

For, Maud, so tender and true. 
As long as my life endures 
I feel I shall owe you a debt, 
That I never can hope to pay ; 
And if ever I should forget 
That I owe this debt to you 
And for your sweet sake to youi'S ; 

then, what then shall I say? — 
If ever I sho2dd forget, 

May G od make me more wretched 
Than ever I have been yet ! 

X,' 

So now I have sworn to bury 
All this dead body of hate, 

1 feel so free and so clear 

By the loss of that dead weight. 

That I should grew^ light-headed, I fear, 



MJVB. 



lul 



Fantastically merry ; 

But that her brother comes, like a blight 

On mv fresh hope, to the Hall to-uight. 

XX. I. 
Steange, that I felt so gay, 
Strange, that /tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy ; 
The Sultan, as we name him, — 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly -. 
Was it gentle to'reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due? 
Or for chilling his caresses 
By the coldness of her manners, 
y^ij, the plainness of her dresses ? 
Now I know her but in two, 
]S'or can pronounce upon it 
If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather. 
Or the frock and gipsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer ; 
For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 

II. 
But to morrow, if we live, 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirelings near ; 
And Maud will wear her jewels, 
And the bird of prey will hover, 
And the titmouse hope to win her 
With his chirrup at her ear. 

III. 
A grand political dinner 
To the men of many acres, 
A gathering of the Tory, 
A dinner and then a dance 
For the maids and marriage-makers, 
And every eye but mine will glance 
At Maud in all her glory, 

IV.' 

For I am not invited, 

But, with the Sultan's pardon, 

I am all as well delighted, 

For I know her own rose g-arden. 

And mean to linger in it 

Till the dancing will be over ; 

And then, oh then, come out to me 

For a minute, but for a minute. 

Come out to your own true lover, 

That your true lover may see 



Your glory also, and render 
All homage to his own darling, 
Queen Maud in all her splendour, 
XXI. 

Rivulet crossing my ground, 

And bringing me down from the Hall 

This garden-rose that I found. 

Forgetful of Maud and me, 

And lost in trouble and moving round 

Here at the head of a tinkling fall. 

And trving to pass to the sea; 

Rivulet, born at the Hall, 
My Maud has sent it by thee 
(If I read her sweet will right) 
On a blushing mission to me, 
Saying in odour and colour, „Ah, be 
ArQong the rosesto-night.'' 

XXII. I. 
Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 
Come into the garden, Maud, 

I am here at the gate alone ; 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad 

And the musk of the roses blown. 
II. 
For a breeze of morning moves. 

And the planet of Love is on high, 
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 

On a bed of daffodil sky," 
To faint in the light of the sun she loves. 

To faint in his light, and to die, 
III, 
All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon ; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune: 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird, 

And a hush with the setting moon. 

IV, 

1 said to the lily, .,There is but one 

Witli whom she has heart to be gay. 
When will the dancers leave her alone? 

She is weary of dance and play.'- 
Xow half to the setting moon are gone, 

And halt to the rising day ; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stoue 

The last wheel echoes away, 

V. 

I said to the rose, „The brief night goes 

In babble and revel and wine. 
young lord-lover, what sighs are those, 

For one that will never be thine? 
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, 

r/For ever and ever, mine." 



MAUD. 



9 J* And the soul of the rose weut into my hlood, 
As the music clash'd in the hall ; 
And Ion? by the garden lake I stood, 

Tor I heard your rivulet fall 
Irom the lake to the meadow and on to the 
(wood, 
Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 

VII. 

From the meadow your walks have left so 
(sweet 

That whenever a March- wind sighs 
He sets tlie jewel-print of your feet 

In violets blue as your eyes, 
To the woody hollows in which we meet 

And the valleys of Paradise. 

YIII. 

The slender acacia would not shake 

One long milk-bloom on the tree; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake 

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; 
13 ut the rose was awake all night for your 
(sake, 

Knowing your promise to me; 
The lilies and roses were all awake, 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

IX. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
Come hither, the dances are done, 

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. 
Queen lily and rose in one; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with 
(curls, 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

X. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 

She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, „She is near, she is near;" 

And the white rose weeps, „She is late;'- 
The larkspur listens, „I hear, I hear;" 

And the lily whispers, „I wait." 

XI. 

She is coming, my own, my sweet; 

AVere it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

Were it earth in an earthy bed; 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead ; 
"Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and red. 



Part II. 
I. I. 

„The fault was mine, the fault was mine" — 
Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still, 
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the 

(hill? - 
It is this guilty hand ! — 
And there rises ever a passionate cry 
From underneath in the darkening land — 
What is it, that has been done? 
dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky. 
The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun, 
The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 
For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a 

(word. 
When her brother ran in his rage to the gate. 
He came with the babe-faced lord; 
Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, 
And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, 
He fiercely gave me the lie, 
Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, 
And he struck me, madman, over the face, 
Struck me before the languid. fool, 
Who was gaping and grinning by : 
Struck for himself an evil stroke; 
Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe; 
For front to front in an hour we stood. 
And a million horrible bellowing echoes 

(broke 
From the red-ribb 'd hollow behind the wood, 
And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christ- 

(less code. 
That must have life for a blow. 
Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to groAv. 
Was it he lay there with a fading eye ? 
vThe fault was mine," he whisper'd, ;,tly I" 
Then glided out of the joyous wood 
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know ; 
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, 
A cry for a brother's blood: 
It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I 

(die, till I die. 

II. 
Is it gone? my pulses beat — 
What was it ? a lying trick of the brain ? 
Yet I thought I saw her stand, 
A shadow there at my feet, 
High over the shadowy land. 
It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle 

(rain, 
When they should burst and drown with 

(deluging storms 
The feeble vassals of wine and anger and 

(lust. 



MAUD. 



lUl 



The little hearts that know not how to for- 

(give : 
Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee 

(just, 
Strike dead the whole weak race of venom- 

(ous worms, 
That sting each other there in the dust ; 
We are not worthy to live. 
II. I. 

See what a lovely shell, 

Small and pure as a pearl, 

Lying close to my foot. 

Frail, but a work divine, 

Made so fairily well 

With delicate spire and whorl, 

How exquisitely minute, 

A. miracle of design ! 
II. 

What is it ? a learned man 

Could give it a clumsy name. 

Let him name it who can. 

The beauty would be the same. 
III. 

The tiny cell is forlorn. 

Void of the little living will 

That made it stir on the shore. 

Did he stand at the diamond door 

Of his house in a rainbow frill? 

Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 

A golden foot or a fairy horn 

Thro' his dim water-world ? 

IV. 

Slight, to be crush'd w"ith a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
Small, but a work divine, 
Frail, but of force to withstand. 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock. 
Here on the Breton strand ! 

V. 

Breton, not Briton; here 

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear — 

Plagued with a flitting, to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

iSor ever arose from below, 

But only moves with the moving eye, 

Flying along the land and the main — 

Why should it look like Maud? 

Am I to be overawed 

By what I cannot but know 



Is a juggle born of the brain ? 

VI. 

Back from the Breton coast, 
Sick of a nameless fear. 
Back to the dark sea-line 
Looking, thinking of all I have lost ; 
An old song vexes my ear ; 
But that of Lamech is mine. 

VII. 

For years, a measureless ill, 
For years, for ever, to part — 
But she, she would love me still ;. 
And as long, God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me, 
So long, no doubt, no doubt, 
Shall I nurse in my dark heart, 
However -weary, a spark of will 
;>fot to be trampled out. 

VIII. 

Strange, that the mind, when fraught 

With a passion so intense] 

One would think that it well 

Might drown all life in the eye, — 

That it should, by being so overwrought 

Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 

For a shell, or a flower, little things 

Which else would have been past by 1 

And now I remember, I, 

When he lay dying there, 

I noticed one of his many rings 

(For he had many, poor worm) and thought 

It is his mother's hair. 

IX. 

Who knows if he be dead? 

Whether I need have fled ? 

Am I guilty of blood ? 

However this may be. 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 

While I am over the sea ! 

Let me and my passionate love go by, 

But speak to her all things holy and high, 

Whatever happen to me ? 

Me and my harmful love go by ; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep. 

Powers of the height, Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die, 

III. 
COURAGE; poor heart of stone 1 
I will not ask thee why 
Thou canst not understand 
That thou art left for ever alone : 
Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — 
Or if I ask thee why. 
Care not thou to reply : 



102 MA UD. 

She is but dead, aud the time is at luuid 
TVheu thou shalt more than die. 

IV. I. 
THAT 'twere possible 
After long grief and pain 
To find the arms of my true love 
Round me once again ! 
II. 
When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
By the home that gave me birth, 
"VVe stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter 
Than any thing on earth. 

III. 
A shadow flits before me, 
ISoi thou, but like to thee ; 
Ah Christ, that it were possible 
Tor one short hour to see 
The souls we loved, that they might tell us 
AVhat and where they be. 

IV. 

It leads me forth at evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

AVheu all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, " 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

V, 

Half the night I waste in siglis, 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes, 
For the meeting of the morrow, 
The delight of happy laughter, 
The delight of low replies. 

VI. 

'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
And a dewy splendour falls 
On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls , 
'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
And the light and shadow fleet; 
She is walking in the meadow, 
And the woodland echo rings ; 
In a moment we shall meet; 
She is singing in the meadow, 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sings. 

VII. 

Do I hear her sing as of old. 
My bird with the shining head, 



My own dove with, the tender eye ? 

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, 

There is some one dying or dead, 

And a sullen thunder is roU'd; 

For a tumult shakes the city, 

And I wake, my dream is fled ; 

In the shuddering dawn, behold, 

Without knowledge, without pity. 

By the curtains of my bed 

That abiding phantom cold. 

VIII. 

Get thee hence, nor come again, 
Mix not memory with doubt. 
Pass, thou deathlike type of puiu. 
Pass and cease to move about ! 
'Tis the blot upon the brain 
That toill show itself without. 

IX. 

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall, 
x\nd the yellow vapours choke 
The great city sounding wide ; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 

X. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame, 

It crosses here, it crosses there. 

Thro' all that crowd confused aud loud, 

The shadow still the same ; 

And on my heavy eyelids 

My anguish hangs like shame. 

XI. 

Alas for her that met me, 

That heard me softly call. 

Came glimmering thro' the laurels 

At the quiet evenfall, 

In the garden by the turrets 

Of the old manorial hall. 

XII. 

Would the happy spirit descend. 
From the realms of light and song, 
In the chamber or the street, 
As she looks among the blest, 
Should I fear to greet my friend 
Or to say „forgive the wrong," 
Or to ask her, ,/take me, sweet, 
To the regions of thy restV" 

XIII. 

But the broad light glares and beats. 
And the shadow flits and fleets 
And will not let me be; 
And I loathe the squares and streets. 
And the faces that one meets, 



MAUD. 



10.^ 



Hearts with no love for me: 
Always I long to creep 
Into some still cavern deep, 
There to weep, imd weep, and weep 
My whole soul out to thee. 

V. I. 
Dead, long dead ! 
Long dead ! 

And my heart is a handful of dust, 
And the wheels go over my head, 
And my bones are shaken with pain, 
For into a shallow grave they are thrust, 
Only a yard beneath the street, 
And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, 
The hoofs of the horses beat ; 
Beat into my scalp and my brain, 
With never an end to the stream of passing 

(feet, 
Driving, hurrying; marrying, burying. 
Clamour and rumble, and" ringing and 

(clatter, 
And here beneath it is all as bad. 
For I thought the dead had peace, but it is 

(not SO; 

To have no peace inthegrave,is that not sad? 
Biit up and down and to and fro, 
Ever about me the dead men go ; 
And then to hear a dead man chatter 
Is enough to drive one mad. 

II. 
Wretchedest age, since Tune began. 
They cannot even bury a man; 
And tho' we paid our tithes in the days 

(that are gone, 
Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read ; 
It is that which makes us loud in the world 

(of the dead ; 
There is none that does his work, not one; 
A touch of their office might have sufficed. 
But the churchmen fain would kill their 

(church, 
As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 

III. 
See, there is one of us sobbing, 
Ko limit to his distress ; 
And another, a lord of all things, praying 
To his own great self, as I guess ; 
And another, a statesman there, betraying 
His party-secret, fool, to the press; 
And yonder a vile physician, blabbing 
The case of his patient — all for what ? 
To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, 
And wheedle a world that loves him not, 
For it is but a world of the dead. 



Nothing but idiot gabble! 

For the prophecy given of old 

And then not understood, 

Has come to pass as foretold; 

Not let any man think for the public good, 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I never whisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse. 

No, not to myself in the closet alone, 

But I heard ft shouted at once from tbe top 

(of the house 
Everything came to be known : 
Who told /vim we were there? 

V. 

Not that gray old wolf,for he came not back 
From tiie wilderness, full of wolves, where 

(he used to lie ; 
He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown 

(whelp to crack ; 
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, 

(and die. 

VI. 

Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, 

And curse me the British vermin, the rat; 

I know not whetherhe came in the Hanover 

(ship, 
But I know that he lies and listens mute 
In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes: 
Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it. 
Except that now we poison our babes, poor 

(souls ! 
It is all used up for that. 

YII. 

Tell him now: she is standing here at my 

(head ; 
Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 
He may take lier now ; for she never speaks 

(her mind, 
But is ever the one thing silent here. 
She is not of us, as I divine ; 
She comes from another stiller world of the 

(dead. 
Stiller, not fairer than mine. 

VII 1. 

But 1 know where a garden grows. 
Fairer than aught in the world beside, 
All made up of the lily and rose 
That blow by night, when the season is good. 
To the sound of dancing music and flutes: 
It is'only ilowers, they had no fruits. 
And I ;ilniost fear they are not ro.ses, but 

(blood ; 
For the keeper was one, so full of pride, 



104 



MAUD, 



He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride; 
For he, if he had not heen a Sultan of brutes, 
Would he have that hole in his side? 

IX. 

.But what will the old man say? 
He laid a cruel snare in a pit " 
To catch a friend of mine one stormy day ; 
Yet now 1 could even weep to think of it ; 
For what will the old man say 
AVhen he comes to the second corpse in the 
(pit? 

X. 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe, 
Then to strike him and lay him low, 
That were a public merit, 'far, 
"Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin ; 
But the red life spilt for a private blow— 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

XI. 

me, why have they not buried me deep 
(enough? 

Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough. 
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper? 
Maybe still I am but half-dead; 
Then 1 cannot be wholly dumb ; 

1 will cry to the steps above my head 
And somebody, surely, some kind heart will 

(come 
To bury me, bury me 
Deeper, ever so little deeper. 

Paet III. 
VI. I. 

My life has crept so long on a broken wing 
Thro' cells of. madness, haunts of horror 

(and fear. 
That I come to be grateful at last for a 

(little thing: 
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of 

(year 
When the face of night is fair on the dewy 

(downs, 
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Cha- 

(rioteer 
And starryGemini hang like glorious crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the west, 
That like a silent lightning under the stars 
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a 

(band of the blest, 
And spoke of a hope for the world in the 

(coming wars — 
„And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble 

(have rest. 



Knowing I tarrv for thee,'' and pointed to 

(Mars 
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the 

(Lion's breast. 

II. 
And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear 

(delight 
To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon 

(eyes so fair, 
That had been in a weary world my one 

(thing bright ; 
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my 

(despair 
When I thought that a war would arise in 

(defence of the right, 
That an iron tyranny now should bend or 

(cease. 
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient 

(height, 
IS'or Britain's one sole God be the million- 

(naire : 
No more shall commerce be all in all, and 

(Peace 
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid, note, 
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd in- 

(crease, 
!N'or the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful 

(shore. 
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's 

(throat 
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind 

(no more. 

III. 
And as months ran on and rumour of battle 

(grew, 
„It is time, it is time, passionate heart," 

(said I 
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be 

(pure and true), 
,/It is time, passionate heart and morbid 

(eye, 
That old hysterical mock-disease should 

(die." 
And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd ray 

(breath 
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry. 
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of 

(death. 

IV. 

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher 

(aims 
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust 

(of gold, 



THE BROOK. 



105 



Aud love of a peace that was lull uf wroags 

(and shames, 
Horrible,hateful,inonstrous, not to be told; 
And hail once more to the banner of battle 

(unroU'd ! 
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many 

(shall weep' 
For those that are crush'd in the clash of 

(jarring claims, 
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on 

(a giant liar; 
And many a darkness into the light shall 

(leap, 
And shine in the sudden making of splendid 

(names, 
And noble thought be freer under the sun, 
xind the heart of a people beat with one 

(desire : 
For the peace, that I deem' d no peace, is 

(over and done, 
And now by the side of the Black and the 

(Baltic deep, 
And deathful-grinning mouths of the for- 

(tress, flames 
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart 

(of lire. 

V. 

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down 

like a wind. 
We hare proved we have hearts in a cause, 

(we are noble still, 
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to 

(the better mind ; 
It is better to fight for the good, than to rail 

(at the ill; 
I have felt with my native land, I am one 

(with my kind, 
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom 

(assign'd. 

THE BROOK: 

AN IDYL. 

Hebi:, by this brook,we parted; I to the East 
And he for Italy — too late — too late : 
One whom the strong sons of the world des- 

(pise; 
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and 

(share, 
And mellow metres more than cent for cent ; 
Xor could he understand how money breeds. 
Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could 

(make 
The thing that is not as the thing that is. 
had he lived ! In our schoolbooks we say, 



Of those that held their heads above the 

(crowd. 
They flourish'd then ; or then but life in him 
Could scare be said to flourish, only touch'd 
On such a time as goes before the leaf, 
When all the wood stands in a mist of green, 
And nothing perfect : yet the brook he loved. 
For which, in branding summers of Bengal, 
Or ev'n the sweet half-English^N'eilgherry air 
I panted, seems, as I re-listen to it. 
Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, 
To me that loved him; for'O Brook,' he says, 
'0 babbling brook,' says Edmund in his 

(rhyme, 
'Whence come your' and the brook, why 
(not ? replies. 
I come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out anions the fern, 

To bicker down a valley. 
By thirty hills I hurry down. 
Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town, 

And half a hundi'ed bridges. 
Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 
./Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn 
(out. 
Travelling toXaples.There isDarnley bridge. 
It has more ivy; there the river; and there 
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river 
(meet. 
I chatter over stony ways. 

In little sharps and trebles, 
1 bubble into eddying bays, 

I babble on the pebbles. 
With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fallow. 
And many a fairy foreland set 

With w'illow-weed and mallow. 
I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 
,;But Philip chatter'd more than brook 
(or bird ; 
Old Philip ; all about the fields you caught 
Ilis weary daylong chirping, like the dry 
High-elbow'd grigs tliat leap in summer 



106 



AN IDYL. 



1 wind aljuut, and in and out. 

Witli licrc a blossom sailing, 

And here and there a lusty trout, 

And here and there a grayling, 

xind here and there a foamy flake 

Ujion me, as I travel 
With many a silvery water break 

Above the golden gravel, 
And draw them all along, and How 

To join the brimming river. 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 
7O darling Katie Willows, his one child ! 
A maiden of our century, yet most meek ; 
A daughter of our meadow, yet not coarse, 
Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand; 
Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair 
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the 

(shell 
Divides threefold to show the fruit within. 
, Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, 
Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 
James Willows, of one name and heart with 

(her. 
i or here I came, twenty years back — the 

(week 
Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost 
By that old bridge which, half in ruins then. 
Still makes a hoary eyebrow for tlie gleam 
Beyond it, where the waters marry — crost. 
Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, 
And push'datPhilip'sgarden-gate. The gate. 
Half-parted from a weak and scoldinghinge, 
Stuck; and he clamour'd from a casement, 

Crun' 
To Katie somewhere in the walks below, 
'Run, Katie!' Katie never ran : she moved 
To meet me, winding under woodbine 

(bowers, 
A little flutter'd, with her eyelids down, 
Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. 
,,What was it ? less of sentiment than sense 
Had Katie ; not illiterate ; nor of those 
Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, 
And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philan- 

(tropies, 
Divorce the Feeling from her mate theDeed. 
„She told me. She and James had quar- 
(rell'd. Why? 
What cause of quarrel ? None, she said, no 

(cause; 
James had no cause -. but when I prest the 
/^ause^ 



I learnt that James had flickering jealousies 
Which anger'd her. Who auger'd Jame? 'i 1 

(said. 
But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from 

(mine. 
And sketching with her slender pointed foot 
Some figure like a wizard's pentagram 
On garden gravel, let my query pass 
Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd. 
If James were coming. 'Coming every day, 
She answer'd 'ever longing to explain. 
But evermore her father came across 
With some long-winded tale, and broke him 

(short; 
And James departed vext with him and her.' 
How could I help her? 'Would I — was it 

(wrong ? 
(Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 
Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she 

(spoke) 
*0 would I take her father for one hour, . 
For one half-hour, and let him talk to me !' 
And even while she spoke,! saw where James 
Made toward us, like a wader in the surf. 
Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow- 

(sweet, 

Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 
For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 
To show the farm: full willingly he rose: 
He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling 

(lanes 
Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. 
He praised his land, his horses,his machines; 
He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, 

(his dogs; 
He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea- 

(hens ; 
His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : 
Then from the plaintive mother's teat he 

(took 
Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming 

(each. 
And naming those, his friends, for whom 

(they were : 
Then crost the common into Darnley chase 
To show Sir xirtliur's deer. In copse and fern 
Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. 
Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech. 
He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said : 
,„That was the four-year-old I sold the 

(Squire." 
And tliere Ite tokl a long lon^- winded tale 



AN IDTl. 



107 



Of how the Squire had seen the eolt at grass, 
And how it was the thing his daughter 

(wish'd, 
And how he sent the bailiff to the farm 
To learn the price, and what the price he 

(ask'd, 
And how the bailiff swore that he was mad, 
But lie stood firm, and so the matter hung, 
He gave them line : and five days after that 
Pie met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 
"Who then and there had offer'd sometliing 

(more, 
But he stood firm, and so the matter hung ; 
He knew the man, the colt would fetch its 

(price, 
He gave them line: and how by chance at last 
(It might be May or April, he forgot, 
The last of April or the first of May) 
He found the bailiff riding by the farm, 
And, talking from the point, he drew him in, 
And there he mellow 'd all his heart with ale. 
Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. 
„Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced. 
And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle. 
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
Till, not to die a listener, I arose. 
And with me Philip, talking still; and so 
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling 

(sun, 
And following our own shadows thrice as 

(long 
As when they foUow'd us from Philip's door, 
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 
I slide by hazel covers ; 

I move the sweet forget me nots 
That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among by skimming swallows ; 

I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 
In brambly wildernesses ; 

I linger by my shingly bars ; 
I loiter round my cresses; 

And out again I curve and flow 
To join the brimming river, 

Fur men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 



Yes, men may come and go; and these are 

(gone. 
All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, 

(sleep.';, 
Kot by the well-known stream and rustic 

(spire, 
But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 
Of Brunelleschi, sleeps in peace: and he, 
Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words 
Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb: 
I scraped the lichen from it : Katie walks 
By the long wash of Australasian seas 
Far off, and holds her head to other stars. 
And breathes in converse seasons. All are 

(gone. 

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a style 
In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind 
Old waifs of rhyme, and ])owing o'er tiie 

(brook 
A tonsured head in middle age forlorn. 
Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low 

(breath 
Of tender air made tremble in the hedge 
The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; 
And helook'd up.There stood a maiden near, 
Waiting to pass. In much amaze he starrd 
On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair 
In gloss and huethechestnut,wiien the shell 
Divides threefold to shoAv the fruit within : 
Then, wondering, ask'd her ,/ Are you from 

(the farm r" 
„Tes" answer'd she. Pray stay a little: par- 

(don me ; 
What do they call you?" „Katie." „That 

(were strange. 
What surname:" „Willows." „]!^o!" „That 

(is my name." 
„ Indeed! " and here he look'd so self-perplext, 
That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, 

(till he 
Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes. 
Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his 

(dream . 
Then looking at her; ,,Too happy, fresh and 

(fair. 
Too fresh and fair in our sad world's l)est 

(bloom. 
To be the ghost of one who bore your name 
About these meadows, twenty years ago." 

,yHave you not heard?" said Katie; ,/We 
(came back. 
. We bought the farm we tenanted before. 
' Am I so like her? so tbev said on board. 



108 



OJ)E ON THE DEATH OF THE DVKE OF WELLINGTON. 



Sir, if you knew her in her English days, 
My mother, as it seems you did, the days 
That most she loves to talk of,come with me. 
My brother James is in the harvest-field : 
But she — you willbe welcome — 0, come in!" 

THE LETTERS. 
I. 
Still on the tower stood the vane, 

A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air, 
I peer'd athwart the chancel pane 

And saw the altar cold and bare. 
A clog of lead was round my feet, 

A band of pain across my brow; 
,/Cold altar. Heaven -and earth shall meet 

Before you hear my marriage vow." 
II. 
I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song 

That mock'd the wholesome human heart , 
And then we met in wrath and wrong, 

We met, but only meant to part. 
Full cold my greeting was and dry; 

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; 
I saw with half-unconscious eye 

She wore the colours I approved. 
III. 
She took the little ivory chest, 

With half a sigh she'turn'd the key, 
Then raised her head with lips comprest, 

And gave my letters back to me. 
And gave the trinkets and the rings, 

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please, 
As looks a father on the things 

Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 

IV, 

She told me all here friends had said ; 

I raged against the public liar; 
Shetatkd'd as if her love were dead, 

But in my words were seeds of fire, 
„No more of love ; your sex is known : 

I never will be twice deceived. 
Henceforth I trust the man alone, 

The w^oman cannot be believed. 

V. 

„Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 

( ind women's slander is the worst), 
And you, whom once I loved so well, 

ThVo' you, my life will be accurst." 
I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 

1 shook her breast with vague alarms — 
Like torrents from a mountain source 

We rush'd into each other's arms. 
vr. 
We parted : sweetly glcam'd tlie stars, 



And sweet the vapour-braided blue, 
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 
The very graves appear'd to smile, 

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells ; 
,/Dark porch/' I said, ,/and silent aisle, 

There comes a sound of marriage bells,' 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE 
OF WELLINGTON. 
I. 
Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation. 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty 

(nation, 
Mourning when their leaders fall, 
Warriors carry the warrior's pail, 
And sorrow" darkens hamlet and hall. 

II. 
Where shall we lay the man whom we 

(deplore? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
And the feet of those he fought for. 
Echo round his bones for evermore. 

III. 
Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
As fits an universal woe. 
Let the long long prosession go, 
And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
And let the mournful martial music blow ; 
The last great Englishman is low. 

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
friends , our chief state-oracle is mute ; 
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood. 
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
Great in council and great in war, 
Foremost captain of his time, 
Rich in saving common-sense. 
And, as the greatest only are, 
In his simplicity sublime. 
good gray head which all men knew, 
voice from wich their omens all men drew, 
iron nerve to true occasion true, 
faH'n at length that tower of strength 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



109 



Which stood four-square to all the winds 

(that blew ! 
Such was he whom we deplore. 
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 
Tlie great World-victor's victor willbe seen 

(no more. 

V. 

All is over and done : 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

England, for thv son. 

Let the bell be toll'd. 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mould, 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river, 

There he shall rest for ever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And a reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds : 

Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem 
(roll'd 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 

He knew their voices of old. 
For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has heard them boom 

Bellow-ing victory, bellowing doom : 

When he with those deep voices wrought, 

Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 
i With those deep voices our dead captain 

- (taught 
i The tyrant, and asserts his claim 

In that dread sound to the great name, 
I AVhich he has worn so pure of blame, 
j In praise and in dispraise the same, 
i A man of well-attemper'd frame. 
) A civic muse, to such a name, 
? To such a name for ages long, 
1 To such a name, 
\ Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
And ever-echoing avenues of song. 

VI. 

Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd 

(guest, 
With banner and with music, with soldier 

(and with priest, 
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my 

(rest ? 
Mighty Seaman, this is he 



Was great by land as thou by sea. 

Thine island loves thee well, thou famous 

(man, 
The greatest sailor since our world began. 
Now, to the roll of muffled drums. 
To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
For this is he 

W' as great by land as thou by sea ; 
His foes were thine ; he kept us free ; 
give him welcome, this is he 
Worthy of our gorgeous rites. 
And worthy to be laid by thec; 
For this is England's gr'eatest son 
He that gain'd a hundred fights. 
iS'or Ever lost an English gun ; 
This is he that far away 
Against the myriads of Assaye 
Clash'd with his fiery few and won ; 
And underneath another sun, 
Warring on a later day, 
Round affrighted Lisbon drew 

The treble works ; the vast designs 

Of his labour'd rampart-lines, 

W^here he greatly stood at bay, 

Whence he issued forth anew, 

And ever great and greater grew. 

Beating from the wasted vines 

Back to France her banded swarms, 

Back to France with countless blows, 

Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 

Beyond the Pyrenean pines, 

Follow'd up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamour of men, 

Roll of cannon and clash of arms. 

And England pouring on her foes. 

Such a war had such a close. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing 
(wings _; 

And barking for the thrones of kings ; 

Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 

On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler 
(down ; 

A day of onsets of despair ! 

Dasli'd on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foam'd themselves 
(away ; 

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew : 

Thro' the long-tormented air 

Heaven flash'd a sudden jubiliant ray, 

And down we swept and charged and over- 
(threw. 

So great a soldier taught us there. 
What long-enduring hearts could do 



110 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF JfEllINGTON. 



In that world's-earthquake, Waterloo I 

Mighty Seaman, tender and true, 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 

saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 

shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine, 

If love of country move thee there at all, 

Be glad, because hisbones are laid by thine ! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

III full acclaim, 

A people's voice, 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and game. 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honour,honour,honour,honourto him, 

Eternal honour to his name. 

VII. 

A people's voice ! we are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless 

(Powers ; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly 

(set 
His Briton in blown seas and storming 

(showers, 
Wehavea voice,with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept 

(it ours. 
And keep it ours, God, from brute control; 
Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the 

(soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown. 
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne. 
That sober freedom out of which there 

(springs 
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; 
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
And drill the raw world for the march of 

(mind. 
Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be 

(just. 
But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
Remember him who led your hosts ; 
He bad you guard the sacred coasts. 
Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 
His voice is silent in your council -hall 
For ever; and whatever tempests lour 
Forever siJent; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent; yet remember all 



He spoke among you, and the Man who 

(spoke ; 
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power ; 
Who let the turbid streams ofTumour flow 
Thro' either babbling world of liigh and low; 
Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
Who never spoke against a foe ; 
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
All great self-seekers trampling on the right- 
Truth-teller was our England's Alfred na- 

(med ; 
Truth-lover was our English Duke; 
Whatever record leap to light 
He never shall be shamed. 

VIII, 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 

Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 

Follow'd by the brave of other lands, 

He, on whom from both her open hands 

Lavish Honour shower'd all her stars, 

And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great, 

But as he saves or serves the state. 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story. 

The path of duty was the way to glory: 

He, that ever following her commands. 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands. 

Thro' the long gorge to the farlight has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd. 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he : his work is done, 

But while the races of mankind endure. 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land. 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman 

(pure : 
Till in all lands and thro' all human story 
The path of duty be the way to glory ; 
And let the land whose hearths he saved 

(from shame 
For many and many an age proclaim 



THE DAISY. 



m 



At civic revel and pomp and game, 

And when the long-illumined cities flame, 

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 

With honour, honour, honour, honour to 

(him, 
Eternal honour to his name. 

IX. 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some yet unmoulded tongue 

Tar on in summers that we shall not see : 

Peace, it is a day of pain 

For one about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung : 

peace, it is a day of pam 

For one, upon whose hand and heart and 

Oncrthe weight and fate of Europe hung. 
Ours the pain, be his the gam ! 
More than is of man's degree 
Must be with us, watching here 
At this, our great solemnity. 
Whom we see not we revere. 
We revere, and we refrain 
From talk of battles loud and vam, 
And brawling memories all too tree 
For such a wise humility 
As befits a solemn fane : 
We revere, and while we hear 
The tides of Music's golden sea 
Setting toward eternity, 
Uplifted high in hearth and hope are we, 
Until we doubt not that for one so true 
There must be other nobler work to do 
Than when he fought at Waterloo, 
And Victor he must ever be. 
For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
And break the shore, and evermore 
Make and break, and work their will • 
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
i Round us, each with different powers,- 
I And other forms of life than ours, ^ 
! What know we greater than the soul : 
i On God and G odlike men we build our trust . 
I' Hush, the Dead March wail s in the people s 

i Thetlark crowd moves, and there are sobs 
(and tears : ,. 

The black earth yawns: the mortal disap- 

(pears; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; 
He is gone who seera'd so great. -- 
Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 



Something far advanced in State, 
And that he wears a truer crown 
Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
Speak no more of bis renown, 
Lay your earthly fancies down, 
And m the vast cathedral leave him. 
God accept him., Christ receive him. 
1852. 



THE DAISY. 

WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. 

LOVE, what hours were thine and mme 
In lands of palm and southern pme 

In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, 
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. 
What Roman strength Turbia show'd 
In ruin, by the mountain road ; 

How like a gem, beneath, the^city 
Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. 
How richly down the rocky dell 
The torrent vineyard streaming fell 

To meet the sun and sunny waters. 
That only heaved with a summer swell. 
What slender campanili grew 
By bays, the peacock's neck m hue ; 

Where, here and there, on sandy beaches 
A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. 
How young Columbus seem'd to rove. 
Yet present in his natal grove, 

A'ow watching high on mountain cornice, 
And steering, now: from a purple cove, 
]S'ow pacing mute by ocean's rim 
Till, in a narrow street and dim, 

I sta/d the wheels at Cogoletto, 
And drank, and loyally drank to him. 
A^or knew we well what pleased us most, 
Ts ot the dipt palm of which they boast ; 

But distant colour, happy hamlet, 
A moulder'd citadel on the coast. 
Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen 
A light amid its olives green ; 

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean ; 
Or rosy blossom in hot ravine, 
Where oleanders flush'd the bed 
Of silent torrents, gravel-spread : 

And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten 
Of ice, far up on a mountain head. 
We loved that hall, tho' white and cold. 
Those niched shapes of noble mould, 
A princely people's awful princes, 
The grave, severe Genovese of old. 



TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 



At Flureijce too what goldcu hours, 
111 those long galleries, were ours ; 

"What drives about the fresh Casciue, 
Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. 
In bright vignettes, and each complete, 
Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, 

Or palace, how the city glitter'd, 
Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. 
But when we crost the Lombard plain 
Remember what a plague of rain ; 

Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; 
At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. 
And stern and sad (so rare the smiles 
Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles ; 

Porch-pillars on the lion resting, 
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. 

Milan, the chanting quires, 
The giant window's blazon'd fires, 

The height,the space,the gloom,the glory ' 
A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! 

1 climb'd the roofs at break of day ; 
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 

I stood among the silent statues, 
And statued pinnacles, mute as they. 
How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair, 
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there 

A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys 
And snowy dells in a golden air. 
Remember how we came at last 
To Como ; shower and storm and blast 

Had blown the lake beyond his limit. 
And all was flooded ; and how we past 
From Como, when the light was gray. 
And in my head, for half the day, 

The rich Virgilian rustic measure 
Of Lari Ma.xume, all the way. 
Like ballad-burthen music, kept. 
As on The Lariano crept 

To that fair port below the castle 
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept ; 
Or hardly slept, bnt watch'd awake 
A cypress in the moonlight shake, 

The moonlight touching o'er a terrace 
One tall Agave above the lake. 
What more ? we took our last adieu, 
And up the snowy Splugen drew. 

But ere we reach'd the highest summit 
T pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. 
It told of England then to me, 
And now it tells of Ital^. 



love, we two slrall go no longer 
To lands of summer across the sea ; 
So dear a life your arms enfold 
Whose crying is a cry for gold : 

Yet here to-night in this dark city, 
A\ hen ill and weary, alone and cold, 
I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, 
This nurseling of another sky 

Still in the little book you lent me, 
And where you tenderly laid it by : 
And I forgot the clouded Forth, 
The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, 

The bitter east, the misty summer 
And gray metropolis of the North. 
Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, 
Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, 

Perchance, to dream you still beside me, 
My fancy fled to the South again. 

TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 

Come, when no graver cares employ, 
God-fatlier, come and see your boy: 

Your presence will be sun in winter. 
Making the little one leap for joy; 
For, being of that honest few, 
Who give the Fiend himself his due. 

Should eighty-thousand college councils 
Thunder „ Anathema," friend, at you: 
Should all our churchmen foam in spite 
At you, so careful of the right, 
Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome 
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; 
Where, far from noise and smoke of town, 
I watch the twilight falling brown 

All round a careless-order'd garden 
Close to the ridge of a noble down. 
You'll have no scandal while you dine. 
But honest talk and wholesome wine, 

And only hear the magpie gossip 
Garulous under a roof of pine : 
For groves of pine on either hand, 
To break the blast of winter, stand ; 

And further on, the hoary Channel 
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand ; 
Where, if below the milky steep 
Some ship of battle slowly creep, 

And on thro' zones of light and shadow 
Glimmer away to the lonely deep 
We might discuss the Northern sin 
Which made a selfish war be^in^ 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



113 



Dispute the claims, arrange the chances ; 
LmT^Qvox, Ottoman, which shall win : 
Or whether war's avenging rod 
aiall lash all Europe into blood ; 

Till you should turn to dearer matters, 
])ear to the man that is dear to God ; 
How best to help the slender store, 
How mend the dwellings, of the poor ; 

How gain in life, as life advances ; 
Valour and charity more and more. 
Come, Maurice, come : the lawn as yet 
Is hoar with rime, or spongy- wet ; 

But when the wreath of March has blos- 

(som'd, 
Crocus, anemone, violet, 
Or later, pay one visit here, 
For those are few we liold as dear : 

Nor pay but one, but come for many, 
Many and many a happy year. 
January^ 1854. 

WILL. 
I. 

WELL for him whose will is strong ! 
He suffers, but he will not suffer long, 
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: 
For him nor moves the loud world's random 

(mock, 
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 
Who seems a promontory of rock, 
That, compass'd round with turbulent 

(sound, 
In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd, 

II. 
But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended 

(Will, 
And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime. 
Or seeming-genial venial fault, 
Recurring^and suggesting still! 
He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 
Toiling in immeasurable sand, 
And o'er a weary sultry land, 
I'ar beneath a blazing vault, 
Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 
The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 

TTIE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT 
BRIGADE. 

HAi^^ a league^ half a league^ 



Half a league onward, 
All in the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
^Forward, the Light Brigade ! 
Charge for the guns !" he said : 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
II. 
„ Forward, the Light Brigade !" 
Was there a man dismay'd? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had blunder'd : 
Their's not to make reply, 
Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do and die 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred, 
III. 
Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell 

Rode the six hundred. 

IV. 

Flash'd all their sabres bare, 
Flash'd as they turn'd in air 
Sabring the gunners there. 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wonder'd ; 
Plunged in the battery-smoke 
Right thro' the line they broke ; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke 

Shatter'd and sunder'd. 
Then they rode back, but not 

IS^ot the six hundred, 

V. 

Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon behind them 

Volley'd and thunder'd \ 
Storm' d'at with shot and shell. 
While horse and hero fell. 
They that had fought so well 
Came thro' the jaws of Death 
Back from the mouth of Hell, 
All that was left of them, 

Left of six hundred. 

VI. 

When can their glory fader 



lU 



IN MEMORIAM. 



the wild clinrge lliey made! 

All the world wonder'd. 
Houour the charge they made ! 
Honour the Light Brigade, 
Noble six hundred ! 

IN MEMORIAM. 
Stroisg Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 

By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
Believing where we cannot prove; 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 

Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 

He thinks he was not made to die : 
And thou hast made him: thou art just. 
Tkou seemest human and divine. 

The highest, holiest, manhood, thou: 

Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 
Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease'to be : 

They are but broken lights of thee, 
And thou, Lord, art more than they. 
We have but faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see: 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness: let it grow. 
Let knowledge grow from more to more, 

But more of reverence in us dwell ; 

That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 
But vaster. We are fools and slight; 

We mock thee when Ave do not fear : 

But help thy foolish ones to bear, 
Help thy vain worlds to hear thy light. 
Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; 

What seem'd my worth since I began; 

For merit lives from man to man. 
And not from man, Lord, to thee. 
Forgive my grief for one removed. 

Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 

I trust he lives in thee, and there 
I find him worthier to be loved. 
Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 

Confusions of a wasted youth ; 

Forgive them where they fall in truth, 



And in thy wisdom make me wise. 
1849. 
IN MEMORIAM. 
A. H. H(allam.) 

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. 
I. 

I HELD it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones. 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match ? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catcli 

The far-off interest of tears ? 

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 

To dance with death, to beat the ground. 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
„Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 
II. 

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the under-lying dead, 
Thy fibres not the dreamless head. 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 

The seasons bring the flower again, 
And bring the firstling to the flock 
And in the dusk of thee, the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

not for thee the glow, the bloom. 
Who changest not in any gale, 
Nor branding summer suns avail 

To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 

And gazing on thee, sullen tree, 
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
I seem to fail from out my blood 

And grow incorporate into thee. 
III. 

SoEEOW, cruel fellowship, 
Priestess in the vaults of Death, 
sweet and bitter in a breath, 

What whispers from thy lying lip ? 

„The stars," she whispers, ^blindly run ; 
A web is wov'n across the sky; 
From out waste places comes a cry, 

And murmurs from the dying sun : 

„ And all the phantom. Nature, stands— 
With all the music in her tone. 



1 



IN MEMORIJM, 



lis 



A hollow echo oi' my own,— 
A hollow form with empty hands." 
A»d shall I take a thing so blind, 

Embrace her as my natural good; 

Or crush her, like a vice of blood, 
Upon the threshold of the mind ? 

IV. 

To Sleep I give my powers away ; 

My will is bondsman to the dark ; 

I sit within a helmless bark, 
And with my heart I muse and say : 

heart, how fares it with thee now, 
That thou should'st fail from thy desire. 
Who scarcely darest to inquire, 

,, What is it makes me beat so low ?" 
Something it is which thon hast lost, 

Some pleasure from thine early years. 

Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears. 
That grief hath shaken into frost ! 
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 

All night below the darken'd eyes : 

W^ith morning wakes the will, and cries, 
„Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 

V. 

1 SOMETIMES hold it half a sin 
To put in words the grief I feel ; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 

xind half conceal the Soul within. 
But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 

A use in measured language lies ; 

The sad mechanic exercise, 
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 
I n words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 

Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 

But that large grief which these enfold 
Is given in outline and no more. 

VI. 

One writes, that „Other friends remain," 
That „Loss is common to the race" — 
And common is the commonplace, 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common ! Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 

father, wheresoe'er thou be, 
Who pledgest now thy gallant son ; 
A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 

Hath still'd the life that beat from thee. 

mother, praying God will save 
Thy sailor, — while thy head ia bow'd, 



] His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 
Ye know no more than I who wrought 

A that last hour to please him well ; 

Who mused on all I had to tell. 
And something written,something thought; 
Expecting still his advent home ; 

And ever met him on his way 

With wishes, thinking, here to-day, 
Or here to-morrow will he come. 
somewhere, meek unconscious dove, 

That sittest ranging golden hair ; 

And glad to find thyself so fair, 
Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 
For now her father's chimney glows 

In expectation of a guest ; 

And thinking „this will please him b»st," 
She takes a riband or a rose ; 
For he will see them on to-night ; 

And with the thought her colour burns ;. 

And, having left the glass, she turns 
Once more to set a ringlet right ; 
And, even when she turn'd, the curse 

Had fallen, and her future Lord 

Was drown'd in passing thro' the foid, 
Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 
what to her shall be the end? 

And what to me remains of good ? 

To her, perpetual maidenhood, 
And unto me no second friend. 

VII. 

Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street. 
Doors, where my heart w^as used to beat 

So quickly, waiting for a hand. 

A hand that can be clasp'd no more — 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep, 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door. 

He is not here ; but far away 
The noise of life begins again, 
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 

VIII. 

A HAPPY lover who has come 
To look on her that loves him well, 
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, 

And learns her gone and far from home ; 

He saddens, all the magic light 

Dies off at once from bower and hall. 



116 



IN MEMORIAM. 



And all the place is dark, and all 

The chambers emptied of delight : 

So find I every pleasant spot 
In which we two were wont to meet, 
The field, the chamber and the street, 

For all is dark where thou art not. 

Yet as that other, wandering there 
In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind, 

Which once she foster'd up with care ; 

So seems it in my deep regret, 

my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poesy 

Which little cared for fades not yet. 
But since it pleased a vanish'd eye, 

1 go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can it there may bloom, 

Or dying, there at least may die. 

IX. 

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore 
Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 

Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

So draw him home to those that mourn 
In vain ; a favourable speed 
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead 

Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 

All night no ruder air perplex 
Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
As our pure love, thro' early light 

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 

Sphere all your lights around, above ; 
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, 

My friend, the brother of my love ; 

My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
Till all my widow'd race be run ; 
Dear as the mothor to the son, 

More than my brothers are to me. 

X. 

I HEAR the noise about thy keel ; 

I hear the bell struck in the night; 

I see the cabin-window bright ; 
I see the sailor at the wheel. 
Thou bringest the sailor to his wife, 

xind travell'd men from foreign lands ; 

And letters unto trembling hands; 
And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life. , 
So bring him: we have idle dreams: 

This look of quiet flatters thus 

Our home-bred fancies: to us. 



The fools of habit, sweeter seems 
To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 

Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
The chalice of the grapes of God; 
Than if with thee the roaring wells 

Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; 

And hands so often clasp'd in mine, 
Siiould toss with tangle and with shells. 

XI. 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 

Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 

And only thro' the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering to the ground : 
Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 

And on these dews that drench the furze, 

And all the silvery gossamers 
That twinkle into green and gold : 
Calm and still li^ht on yon great plain 

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 

And crowded farms and lessening towers, 
To mingle with the bounding main : 
Calm and deep peace in this wide air. 

These leaves that redden to the fall ; 

And in my heart, if calm at all, 
If any calm, a calm despair : 
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And waves that sway themselves in rest, 

And dead calm in that noble breast 
W'hich heaves but with the heaving deep. 

XII. 

Lo, as a dove when up she springs 
To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe, 
Some dolorous message knit below 

The wild pulsation of her wings; 

Like her I go ; I cannot stay ; 
I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of nerves without a mind, 

And leave the cliffs, and haste away 

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 
And reach the glow of southern skies, 
And see the sails at distance rise, 

And linger weeping on the marge, 

And saying : „Comes he thus, my friend? 
In this the end of all my care ?'• 
x\nd circle moaning in the air : 

„Is this the end? Is this the end?'' 

And forward dart again, and play 
About the prow, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn, 

That I have been an hour awav. 



IN MEMORIJM, 



VLl 



Teaks of the widower, when he sees 
A late-lost form that sleep reveals, 
And moves his doubtful arm, and feels 

Her place is empty, fall like these : 

Which weep a loss for ever new, 
A void where heart on heart reposed ; 
And, where warm hands have prest and 
(closed. 

Silence, till I be silent too. 

Which weep the comrade of my choice, 
An awful thought, a life removed, 

I The human-hearted man I loved, 

\ A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 

i Come Time, and teach me, many years, 

1 I do not suffer in a dream ; 

i For now so strange do these things seem , 

Mine eyes have leisure for their tears ; 

' My fancies time to rise on wing, 

j And glance about the approaching sails, 

! As tho' they brought but merchants' bales, 

j And not the burthen that they bring. 

XIV. 

If one should bring me this report, 
I That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day, 
! And I went down unto the quay, 
i And found thee lying in the port ; 
1 And standing, muffled round with woe, 
i Should see thy passengers in rank 
I Come stepping lightly down the plank, 
\ And beckoning unto those they know ; 
! And if along with these should come 
! The man I held as half-divine ; 
I Should strike a sudden hand in mine, 

And ask a thousand things of home; 

And I should tell him all my pain , 
And how my life had droop'd of late, 
And he should sorrow o'er my state 

And marvel what possess'd my brain, 
j And 1 perceived no touch of change, 
i IST hint of death in all his frame, 
But found him all in all the same, 

I should not feel it to be strange. 

XV, 

To-NiGHT the winds begin to rise 
And roar from yonder dropping day : 
The last red leaf is whirl'd away. 

The rooks are blown about the skies ; 

The forest crack'd the waters curl'd, 
The cattle huddled on the lea : 
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 



The sunbeam strikes along the world : 

And but for fancies, which aver 
That all thy motions gently pass 
Althwart a plane of molten glass, 

I scarce could brook the strain and stir 

That makes the barren branches loud ; 
And but for fear it is not so. 
The wild unrest that lives in woe 

Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

That rises upward always higher, 
And onw^ard drags a labouring breast, 
And topples round the dreary west, 

A looming bastion fringed with fire. 

XVI. 

What w^ords are these have fall'n from me? 

Can calm despair and wild unrest 

Be tenants of a single breast, 
Or sorrow such a changeling be? 
Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm ; 

But knows no more of transient form 
In her deep self, than some dead lake 
That holds the shadow of a lark 

Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 

Or has the shock, so harshly given, 
Confused me like the unhappy bark 
That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 

And staggers blindly ere she sink ? 

And stunn'd me from my power to think 
And all my knowledge of myself; 
And made me that delirious man 

W^hose fancy fuses old and new^, 

And flashes into false and true, 
xAnd mingles all without a plan? 

XVII. 

Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze 
Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 

To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

For I in spirit saw thee move 

Thro' circles of the bounding sky. 
Week after week : the days go by : 

Come quick, thou bringest all I loVe. 

Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 
My blessing, like a line of light, 
Is'on the waters day and night, 

And like a beacon guards thee home. 

So may whatever tempest mars 
Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark; 
And balmy drops in summer dark 

Slidu from the bosom of the stars. 



lis 



IN MEMOniAM. 



So kind an office bath been done, 
Such precious relics brought by thee ; 
The dust of him I shall not see 

Till allmy widow'd race be run. 

XVIII. 

'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand 
"Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 

The violet of his native land. 

'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 
As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest 

And in the places of his youth. 

Come then, pure hands, and hear the head 
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
And come, whatever loves to weep. 

And hear the ritual of the dead. 

Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 
I 'falling on his faithful heart. 
Would breathing thro' his lips impart 

The life that almost dies in me; 

That dies not, but endures with pain. 
And slowly forms the firmer mind, 
Treasuring the look it cannot find, 

The words thtit are not heard again. 

XIX. 

The Danube to the Severn gave 
The darken'd heart that beat no more : 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

And in the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
xAnd hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 

The Wye is hush'dnor moved along 
And hush'd my deepest grief of all. 
When fill'd with tears that cannot fall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 
Is vocal in its wooded walls; 
My deeper anguish also falls, 

And I can speak a little then. 

XX. 

The lesser griefs that may be said. 
That breathe a thousand tender vows. 
Are but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead; 

Who speak their feeling as it is, 
And weep the fullness from the mind: 
,lt will be hard'' they say, ^to find 

Another service such as this ' 



My lighter moods are like to these, 
That out of words a comfort win ; 
But there are other griefs within. 

And tears that at their fountain freeze: 

For by the hearth the children sit 
Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
And scarce endure to draw the ])realh. 

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : 

But open converse is there none, 
So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 

,/How good ! how kind! and he is gone.'' 

XXI. 

I SING to him that rests below, 
And, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave, 

And make them pipes whereon to blow. 

The traveller hears me now and then, 
And sometimes harshly will he speak ; 
;/This fellow would make weakness weak, 

And melt the waxen hearts of men." 

Another answers, ,,Let him be, 
He loves to make parade of pain, 
That with his piping he may gain 

The praise that comes to constancy.'' 

A third is wroth, ,/Is this an hour 
For private sorrow's barren song. 
When more and more the people throng 

The chairs and thrones of civil power : 

A time to sicken and to swoon. 
When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and charms 

Her secret from the latest moon r' 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing : 
Ye never knew the sacred dust: 
I do but sing because I must, 

And pipe but as the linnets sing : 

And one is glad ; her note is gay, 
For now her little ones have* ranged ; 
And one is sad; her note is changed. 

Because her brood is stol'n away. 

XXII. 

The path by which we twain did go, 
Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow ; 

And we with singing cheer'd the way. 
And, crown'd with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went, 

And glad at hectrt from Muv to Muy : 



IN MEMOliLni. 



119 



But where the path we walk'd begau 
To slant the fifth uutumual slope. 
As we descended following Hope, 

There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship, 
And spread his mantle dark and cold. 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 

And duU'd the murmur on thy lip, 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, 
And think, that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 

XXIII. 

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut. 
Or breaking into song by fits. 
Alone, alone, to where he sits, 

The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot. 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
I wander, often falling lame. 
And looking back to whence I came, 

Or on to where the pathway leads ; 

And cyring. How changed from where it ran 
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb : 
But all the lavish hills would hum 

The murmur of a happy Pan : 

When each by turns was guide to each, 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with 
(Thought, 

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 

And all we met was fair and good. 
And all was good that Time could bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring 

Moved in the chambers of the blood ; 

And many an old philosophy 
On Argive heights divinely sang, 
And round us all the thicket rang 

To many a flute of Arcady. 

XXIV. 

And was the day of my delight 

As pure and perfect as I say ? 

The very source and fount of Day 
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 
If all was good and fair we m^t, 

Tbis earth had been the Paradise 

It never look'd to human eyes 
Since Adam left his garden yet. 
And is it that the haze of grief 

Makes former gladness loom so great ? 

To lowness of the present state, 
That sets the past in thisrelief^^? 



Or that the past will always win 

A glory from its being far; 

And orb into the perfect star 
We saw not, when we moved therein ? 

XXV, 

I KNOW that this was Life, the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared ; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 
As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
I loved the weight I had to bear. 

Because it needed help of Love : 

Nor could I weary, heart of limb, 
W'hen mighty Love would cleave in twain 
The lading of a single pain, 

And part it, giving half to him. 

XXVI. 

Still onwards winds the dreary way ; 
I with it ; for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Love, 

Whatever fickle tongues may say. 

And if that eye which watches guilt 
And goodness, and hath power to see 
Within the green the moulder'd tree, 

And towers fall'n as soon as built — 

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee 
Or see (in Him is no before) 
In more of life true life no more, 

And Love the indifference to be. 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas. 
That Shadow waiting with the keys. 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 

XXVII. 

I ENVY not in any moods 
The captive void of noble rage, 
The linnet born within the cage, 
j That never knew the summer woods-. 

I envy not the beast that takes 
His license in the field of time, 
Uufetter'd by the sense of crime, 

To whom a conscience never wakes ; 

Nor, what may count itself as blest, 
The heart that never plighted troth 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 
I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 
'Tis better to have loved and lost 

Than never to have loved at aJL 



120 ■ 



L\ MEMORIAM. 



XXVIII. 

Thk time draws near the birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid; the night is still; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Four voices of four hamlets round, 
From far and near, on mead and moor. 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound : 

Each voice four changes on the wind, 
That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, 

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 

This year I slept and woke with pain, 
I almost wish'd no more to wake, 
And that my hold on life would break 

Before I heard those bells again-. 

But they my troubled spirit rule, 
For they controll'd me wiien a boy : 
They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, 

The merry merry bells of Yule. 

XXIX. 

With such compelling cause to grieve 
As daily vexes househould peace, 
And chains regret to his decease. 

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve; 

Which brings no more a welcome guest 
To enrich the threshold of the night 
With shower'd largess of delight. 

In dance and song and game and jest. 

Yet go, and while the holly boughs 
Entwine the cold baptismal font. 
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont, 

That guard the poi tals of the house ; 

Old sisters of a day gone by, 
Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; 
Why should they miss their early due 

Before their time? They too will die. 

XXX. 

With trembling fingers did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth. 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 

At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gambol'd, making vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

We paused, the winds w^ere in the beech : 
We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
And in a circle hand-in-hand 

S>-4X silent, looking each at each. 



Then echo-like our voices rang ; 

We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 

A merry song we sang'with him 
Last year: impetuously we sang: 
We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

,/Ihey rest," we said, ./their sleep is sweet," 
And silence follow'd, and we wept. 
Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang: ,/They do not die 

]S"or lose their mortal sympathy, 
Xor change to us, although they change ; 
Rapt from the fickle and the frail 

AVith gather'd power, yet the same. 

Pierces the keen seraphic ilame 
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.'' 
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn. 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night ; 

Father, touch the east, and light 
The light that shone when Hope was born. 

XXXI. 

Whex Lazarus left his charnel-cave, 
And home to Mary's house returned, 
Was this demanded — 'if he yearn'd 

To bear her weeping by his grave? 

„ Where wert thou,brother,those four days?'' 
There lives no record of reply. 
Which telling what it is to die 

Had surely added praise to praise. 

From every house the neighbours met. 
The streets were fill'd with joyful sound, 
A solemn gladness even crown'd 

The purple brows of Olivet. 

Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 
The rest remaineth unreveal'd ; 
He told it not ; or something seal'd 

Th&lips of that Evangelist. 

XXXII. 

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 
]S'or other thought her mind admits 
But, he was dead, and there he sits. 

And he that brought him back is there. 

Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother's face, 

And rests upon the Life indeed. 

All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
Borne down by gladness so complete, 
She l)Ows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 

With costly spikenard and with tears. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful praters 



IK MEMORUM. 



121 



Whose loves in higher love endure; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 
)r is there hlessedness like theirs ? 

XXXIII, 

) THOU that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air 
j Whose faith has centre everywhere, 
' S^'or cares to fix itself to form, 
Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 
L life that leads melodious days. 
:Ier faith thro' form is pure as thine, 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
[ Oh, sacred be the ilesh and blood 
! 'o which she links a truth divine ! 
>ee thou, that countest reason ripe 
In holding by the law within, 
Thou fail not in a world of sin, 
Ind ev'n for want of such a type. 

t XXXIV. 

I Ay own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live for evermore, 
Else earth is darkness at the core, 

Vnd dust and ashes all that is ; 

This round of green, this orb of flame, 
Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 
In some wild Poet, when he works 

Witiiout a conscience or an aim, 

VN'hat then were God to such as I ? 
'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
Of things all mortal, or to use 

i little patience ere I die ; 

Twere best at once to sink to peace, 
Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness and to cease, 

XXXV. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust 
Should murmur from the narrow house, 
„The cheeks drop in ; the body bows ; 

Man dies : nor is there hope in dust : " 

Might I not say ? „yet even here, 
But for one hour. Love, I strive 
To keep so sweet a thing alive:" 

But I should turn mine ears and hear 

The moaning of the homeless sea, 
The sound of streams that swift or slow 
Draw down .Ionian hills, and sow 

The dust of continents to be ; 

A.nd Love would answer with a sigh, 



,,The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will changemy sweetness more andmore. 
Half-dead to know that I shall die.'- 

me, what profits it to put 

An idle case? If Death were seen 

At first as Death, Love had not been, 
Or been in narrowest working shut, 
Mere fellowship of sluggish moods. 

Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 

Had bruised the herb and crush'd the 

(grape, 
And bask'd and batten'd in the woods. 

XXXVI. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 

Of Him that made them current coin ; 

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought, 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef. 

XXXVII. 

Ura^tia speaks with darken'd brow: 
,/Thoupratesthere where thou art least ; 
This faith has many a purer priest. 

And many an abler voice than thou. 

Go down beside thy native rill. 
On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 

About the ledges of the hill." 

And my Melpomene replies, 
A touch of shame upon her cheek : 
,/I am not worthy ev'n to speak 

Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 

For I am but an earthly Muse, 
And owning but a little art 
To lull with song an aching heart. 

And render human love his dues ; 

Biit brooding on the dear one dead, 
And all he said of things divine, 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 

To dying lips is all he said), 

1 murmur'd, as I came along-, 



123 



m ME3fORIJM. 



Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd ; 
And loiter'd in the master's field, 
And darken'd sanctities with song.'' 

XXXVIII. 

AViTH weary steps I loiter on, 
Tho' always under alter'd skies 
Tlie purple from the distance dies, 

My prospect and horizon gone. 

Xo joy the blowing season gives, 
The herald melodies of spring, 
But in the songs I love to sing 

A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 

Survive in spirits render'd free. 
Then are these songs I sing of thee 

Xot all ungrateful to thine ear. 

XXXIX. 

Old warder of these buried bones. 

And answering now my random stroke 
^\'ith fruitful cloud and living smoke, 

Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 

And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
To thee too comes the golden hour 
^Vhen flower is feeling after flower; 

But Sorrow fixt upon the dead, 

And darkening the dark graves of men, 
What whisper'd from her lyir.g lips ? 
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips. 

And passes into gloom again. 
XL. "" 

CoL'LD we forget the widow'd hour 
And look on Spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 

"When first she wears her orange-flower ! 

"When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
To take her latest leave of home, 
And hopes and light regrets that come 

Make April of her tender eyes; 

And doubtful joys the father move, 
And tears are on the mother's face, 
As parting with along embrace 

She enters other realms of love; 

Her oflice there to rear, to teach. 
Becoming as is meet and fit 
A link among the days, to knit 

The generations each with each ; 

And doubtless, unto thee is given 
A life that bears immortal fruit 
Til such great offices as suit 

Tlie full-g^o^vu energies of lieaven . 

Av me, the differtiire I di.^ccrn! 



How often shall her old fireside 

Be cheered with tidings of the bride, 
How often she herself return. 
And tell them all they would have told. 

And bring her babe, and make licr boast. 

Till even those that miss'd her most, 
Shall count new things as dear as old : 
But thou and I have shaken hands, 

Till growing winters lay me low ; 

My paths are in the fields I know, 
And thine in undiscover'd lands. 

XLT. 

Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher ; 

As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 
As flies the lighter thro' the gross. 
; But thou art turn'd to something strange^ 
j And I have lost the links that bound 

Thy changes, here upon the ground, 
yo more partaker of thy change. 
' Deep folly I yet that this could be — 

That I could wing my will with might 

To leap the grades of life and light, 
And flash at once, my friend, to thee : 
For tho' my nature rarely yields 

To that vague fear implie'd in death; 

Ts'or shudders at the gulfs beneath, i 

The bowlings from forgotten fields; 
Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 

An inner trouble I behold, 

A spectral doubt which makes me cold, i 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 
Tho' following with an upward mind 

The wonders that have come to thee, 

Thro' all the secular to-be. 
But evermore a life behind. 

XLII. 

I VEX my heart with fancies dim : 
He still outstript me in the race ; 
It was but unity of place 

That made me dream I ranked with him. 

And so may Place retain us still, 
And he tiie much -beloved again, 
A lord of large experience, train 

To riper growth the mind and will : 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves biit knows not, reaps 

A truth from one that loves and knows : 

XLIIT. 

If sleep and Deatli he truly one. 



IN ME3WRIJM. 



Ii23 



I And every spirit's folded bloom 
I Thro' all its iutervital gloom 
lu some long trance should slumber ou \ 
Unconscious of the sliding hour, 

Bare of the body, might it last, 

And silent traces of the past 
Be all the colour of the flower : 
So then were nothing lost to man ; 

So that still garden of the souls 
■ In many a figured leaf enrolls 
The total world since life began ; 
I And lore will last as pure and whole 
! As when he loved me here in Time 
I And at the spiritual prime 
\ Rewaken with the dawning soul. 

' XLIV. 

How fares it with the happy dead ? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
: Sod shut the doorways of his head. 
; The days have vanish'd, tone and tint, 
; And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 

Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 
A little flash, a mystic hint ; 
And in the long harmonious years 

(If Death so taste Lethean springs) 

May some dim touch of earthly things 
Surprise the ranging with thy peers. 
If such a dreamy touch should fall, 

turn thee round, resolve the doubt ; 

My guardian angel will speak out 
In that high place, and tell thee all. 

XLV. 

The baby new to earth and sky, 
What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thought that „this is I :'' 

But as he grows he gathers much, 
And learns the muse of „I" and „me," 
And finds „I am not what I see, 

j And other than the things I touch." 

! So rounds he to a separate mind 

; From whence clear memory may begin, 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 

I His isolation grows defined. 

! This use may lie in blood and breath. 
Which else were fruitless of their due, 
Had man to learn himself anew 

I Beyond the second birth of Death. 

XLVI. 

' Wk ranging down this lower track, 



The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadow'd by the growing hour, 

Lest life should fail in looking back. 

So be it : there no shade can last 
In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 

The eternal landscape of the p^ast ; 

A lifelong tract of time reveal'd : 
The fruitful hours of still increase ; 
Days order'd in a wealthy peace, 

And those five years its richest field. 

love, thy province were not large, 
A bounded field, nor stretching far j 
Look also. Love, a brooding star, 

A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 

XLVII. 

That each, who seems a separate whole, 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general Soul, 

Is faith as vague as all unswect : 
Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside ; 

And I shall know him when we meet : 

And we shall sit at endless feast. 
Enjoying each the other's good : 
What vaster dream can hit the mood 

Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height. 
Before the spirits fade away, 
Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 

//Farewell ! We lose ourselves in light." 

XLVIII. 

Ir these brief lays, of Sorrow born. 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here proposed, 

Then these were such as men might scorn: 

Her care is not to part and prove ; 

She takes, when harsher moods remit. 
What slender shade of doubt may flit. 

And makes it vassal unto love : 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words. 
But better serves a wholesome law, 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure from the chords : 

]S'or dare she trust a larger lay. 
But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 

Their wings in tears, and skim away. 

XLIX. 

From art, from nature, from the schools, 



134 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Let random influences glance. 
Like light in many a shiver'd lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools : 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 
The fancy's teuderest eddy wreathe, 
The slightest air of song shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy look, and go thy way, 
But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming- wanton ripple break, 

The tender -pencil'd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down. 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 

L. 

Be near me when my light is low, 
Wlien the blood creeps,and the nerves prick 
And tingle; and the heart is sick, 

And all the wheels of Being slow. 

Be near me when the sensuous frame 
Is rack'dwith pangs that conquer trust; 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 

And Life, a Pury slinging flame. 

Be near me when my faith is dry. 
And men the flies of latter spring, 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, 

And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away. 

To point the term of human strife. 
And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day, 

LI. 

Do wc indeed desire the dead 
Should still be near us at our side V 
Is there no baseness we would hide ? 

Is'o inner vileness that we dread? 

Shall he for whose applause I strove^ 
I had such reverence for his blame, 
See with clear eye some hidden shame 

And I be lessen'd in his love? 

I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 
Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? 
There must be wisdom with great Death : 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

Be near us when we climb or fall : 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 

LII. 

1 CANNOT love thee as I ought, 



I'or love reflects the thing beloved ; 

My words are only words, and moved 
Upon the topmost froth of thonght. 
„ Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 

The spirit of true love replied, 

,,Thou canst not move me from thy side, 
Nor human frailty do me wrong. 
„ What keeps a spirit wholly true 

To that ideal which he bears? 

What record ? not the sinless years 
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue : 
,/So fret not, like an idle girl. 

That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. 

Abide: thy wealth is gather'd in, 
When Time hath snnder'd shell from pearl." 

LIII. 

How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man, among his boys, 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 

Who wears his manhood hale and green: ' 

xind dare we to this fancy give, | 

That had the wild oat not been sown ' 

The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 

The grain by which a man may live ? 

Oh, if we held the doctrine sound 
For life outliving heats of youth, 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 

To those that eddy round and round ? 

Hold thou the good: define it ^ ell : 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 

Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 

LIV. 

Oh yet we trust that somehow good 

Will be the final goal of ill. 

To pangs of nature, sins of will. 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 
That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 

That not one life shall be destroy'd, 

Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete. 
That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 

That not a moth with vain desire 

Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 
Behold, we know not anything ; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 

At last — far off — at last, to all. 
And every winter change to spring. 
So runs my dream: but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night : 



IN 

An infant crying for the light: 
And with no language but a cry. 

LV. 

The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave, 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the soul ? 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams 

^ So careful of the type she seems, 

So careless of the single life ; 

That I, considering everywhere 
Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

^ And finding that of fifty seeds 

She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod. 
And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 

xiud faintly trust the larger hope. 

LVI, 

„So careful of the type?" but no. 
From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries ,,a thousand tydes are gone : 
I care for n othin g, all shall go . 
vThou makest thine appeal to me: 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but m^ean the breath : 
I know no more.'- And he, shall he, 
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies. 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer. 
Who trusted God was love indeed 
And love Creation's final law — 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
Wit>' ravine, shriek'd against his creed — 
WTio loved, who suffer'd countless ills 
Who battled for the True, the Just, ' 
Be blown about the desert dust. 
Or seal'd within the iron hills ? 
No more? A monster then, a dream, 
A discord. Dragons of the prime. 
That tare each other in their slime, 
Were mellow music match'd with him. 
! life as fut lie, then, as frail ! 

for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 
What hope of answer, or redress? 



MEMORIAM. 

Behind the wtil, behind the veil. 



125 



Peace ; come away : the song of woe 
Is after all an earthly song : 
Peace ; come away : we do him wrong 

To sing so wildly : let us go. 

Come, let us go : your cheeks are pale, 
But half my life I leave behind: 
Methinks my friend is richly shrined: 

But I shall pass, my work will fail. 

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies. 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 

That ever look'd with human eyes. 

I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 
Eternal greetings to the dead. 
And //Ave, Ave, Ave,''' said, 

„Adieu, adieu" for evermore. 

LVIII. 

In those sad words I took farewell : 
Like echoes in sepulchral halls. 
As drop by drop the water falls 

In vaults and catacombs, they fell ; 

And, falling, idly broke the peace 
Of hearts that beat from day to day, 
Half-conscious of their dying clay^ 

And those cold crypts where they shall cease . 

The highMuse answer'd : „Wherefore grieve 
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear ? 
Abide a little longer here, 

And thou shalt take a nobler leave." 

LIX. 

Sorrow, wilt thou live with me 
No casual mistress, but a wife, 
My bosom-friend and half of life- 

As I confess it needs must be ; 

Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood. 
Be sometimes lovely like a bride, 
And put thy harsher moods aside, 

If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

My centred passion cannot move, 
Nor will it lessen from to-day ; 
But I'll have leave at times to play 

As with the creature of my love ; 

And set thee forth, for thou art mine. 
With so much hope for years to come, 
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 

Could hardly tell what name were thine. 

I LX, 

I He past ; a soul of nobler tone : 
My spirit loved and loves him yet, 



136 



JN MEMORIAL. 



Like some poor girl whose heart is set 
Ou oue whose rauk exceeds her own. 
He mixing with his proper sphere, 

She finds the baseness of her lot, 

Half jealous of she knows not what, 
And envying all that meet him there. 
The little village looks forlorn ; 

She sighs amid her narrow days, 

Moving about the household ways, 
In that dark house where she was born. 
The foolish neighbours come and go. 

And tease her till the day draws by -. 

At night she weeps, „How vain am 1 1 
How should he love a thing so low r 

LXI. 

Ir, in thy second state sublime. 
Thy ransom'd reason change replies 
With all the circle of the wise, 

The perfect flower of human time ; 

And if thou cast thine eyes below, 
How dimly charactered and slight, 
How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, 

How blanch'd with darkness must I grow ? 

Yet turn to the doubtful shore , 
Where thy first form was made a man ; 
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakspeare love thee more, 

LXII, 

Tho' if an eye that's downward cast 
Could make thee somewhat blench or fail. 
Then be my love an idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past ; 

And thou, as one that once declined, 
When he was little more than boy. 
On some unworthy heart with joy. 

But lives to wed an equal mind ; 

And breathes a novel world, the wliile 
His other passion wholly dies, 
Or in the light of deeper eyes 

Is matter for a flying smile. 

LXIII. 

Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, 
And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

in its assumptions up to heaven : 

And I am so much more than these. 
As thou, perchance, art more than I^ 
And yet I spare them sympathy 

And I would set their pains at ea'se. 

So may'st thou watch me where T weep ; 
As, unto vaster motions bound, 



The circuits of thine orbit round 
A higher height, a deeper deep. 

LXIV. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been. 
As some divinely gifted man, 
TMiose life in low estate began 

And on a simple village green ; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 

And grapples w^ith his evil star ; 

Who makes by force his merit known 
And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty state's decrees. 

And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

And moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 

The centre of a world's desire ; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 
AVhen all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 

A secret sweetness in the stream, 

The limit of his narrower fate, 
Wliile yet beside its vocal springs 
He play'd at counsellors and kings, 

With one that was his earliest mate ; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 
And reaps the labour of his hands, 
Or in the furrow musing stands : 

vDoes my old friend remember me r" 

LXV. 

Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt \ 
I lull a fancy trouble-tost 
With „Love's too precious to be lost, 

A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And Ir that solace can I sing, 
Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happy thought, 

Self-balanced on a lightiome wing: 

Since we deserved the name of friends. 
And thine effect so lives in me, 
A part of mine may live in thee 

And move thee on to noble ends. 

LXVI, 

You thought my heart too far diseased ; 
You wonder when my fancies play 
To find me gay among the gay. 

Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by which my life w;is crost, 
Which makes a desert in the mind. 



/J\" MEMORJJM. 



127 



Has made me kiudly with my kind. 
And like to Mm whose sight is lost; 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land, 
Whose jest among his friends is free, 
Wo takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand : 

He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky ; 
His inner day can never die, 

His night of loss is always there. 

LXVII. 

When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest 
By that broad water of the west, 

There comes a glory on the walls : 

Thy marble bright in dark appears. 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name, 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away ; 
From off my bed the moonlight dies ; 
And closing eaves of wearied eyes 

I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray : 

And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
And in the dark church like a ghost 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

LXVIII. 

W^HEN in the dawn I sink my head. 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my 
(breatli ; 

Sleep, ^Death's twin-brother, knows not 
(Death ; 
Nor can I dream of thee as dead : 
I walk as ere I walk'd forlorn, 

When all our path was fresh with dew, 

And all the bugle breezes blew 
Reveillee to the breaking morn. 
But what is this ? I turn about, 

I find a trouble in thine eye, 
^ Which makes me sad I know not why, 
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt : 
But ere the lark hath left the lea 

I wake, and I discern the truth ; 

It is the trouble of my youth 
That foolish sleep transfers too thee. 

LXIX. 

I deeam'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature's ancient power was lost : 
The streets were black with smoke and 
(frost, 



They chatter'd trifles at the door : 

I wander'd from the noisy town, 
I found a wood with thorny boughs : 
I took the thorn^to bind my brows, 

I wore them like a civic crown : 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 
From youth and babe and hoary hairs: 
They call'd me in the public squares 

The fool that wears a crown of thorns: 

They call'd me fool, they call'd me child : 
I found an angel of the night; 
The voice was low, the look was bright ; 

He look'd upon my crown and smiled : 

He reach'd the glory of a hand. 
That seem'd to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief. 

The words were hard to understand. 

LXX. 

I CANNOT see the features right, 
When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know ; the hues are faint 

And mix with hollow masks of night; 

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
xA. gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points, and palled shapes 

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 

And crowds that streamfromyawningdoors. 
And shoals ofpucker'd faces drive; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 

And lazy lengths on boundless shores ; 

Till all at once beyond the will 
I hear a wizard music roll, 
And thro' a lattice on the soul 

Looks thy fair face and makes it still . . 

LXXI. 

Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A night-long Present of the Past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

Hadst thou such credit with the soul ? 
Then bring an opiate trebly strong. 
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong 

That so my pleasure may be whole : 

While now we talk as oncfe we talk'd 
Of men and minds, the dust of change, 
The days that grow to something strange. 

In walking as of old we walk'd 

Beside the river's wooded reach. 
The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
The cataract flashing from the bridge, 

The breuker breaking on the beach. 



128 



IN MEMORTAM. 



LXXII. 

"RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
And hoTvlest, issuing out of night, 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 
And lash with storm the streaming paneV 
Day, when my crown'd estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
"Which sicken'd every living bloom, 
And blurr'd the splendour of the sun ■ 
Who usherest in the dolorous hour 
With thy quick tears that make the rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 
Her crimson fringes to the shower ; 
Who might'st have heaved a windless flame 
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 
Along the hills, yet look'd the same, 
As wan, as chill, as wild as now; 
Day, mark'd as with some hideous crime, 
When the dark hand struck down thro' 
(time, 
And cancell'd nature's best : but thou, 
Lift as thou may'st thy burthen'd brows 
Thro'clouds that drench the morningsiar, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar, 
And sow the sky with flying boughs, 
And up thy vault with roaring sound 
Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, " 
And hide thy shame beneath the ground, 

LXXIII. 

So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be, 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 

The fame is quench'd that I foresaw. 
The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath : 
I curse not nature, no, nor death ; 

For nothing is that errs from law. 

We pass : the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age ? It rests with God. 

O hollow wraith of dying fame, 
Fade wholly, while the soul exults. 
And self-iniolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 

LXXIV. 

As sometimes in a d^ad man's face, 
To those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before, 



Comes out ■— to some one of his race : 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below. 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see, 
And what I see I leave unsaid, 
Xor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 
Lxxy. 

I LEAVE thy praises unexpress'd 
In verse that brings myself relief, 
And by the measure of my grief 

I leave thy greatneSvS to be guess'd ; 

What practice howsoe'er expert 
In fitting aptest words to things, 
Or voice^the richest-toned that sings, 

Hath power to give thee as thou wert? 

I care not in these fading days 
To raise a cry that lasts not long, 
And round thee with the breeze of song 

To stir a little dust of praise. 

Thy leaf has perish'd in the green. 
And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here'shall silence guard thy fame; 
But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 

Is wrought witli tumult of acclaim. 

LXXVI. 

Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 

Are sharpen'd to a needle's end; 

Take wings of foresight; lighten thro' 
The secular abyss to come, 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 

Before the mouldering of a yew ; 

And if the matin songs, that woke 
The darkness of our planet, last, 
Thine own shall wither in the vast. 

Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 

Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain ; 
And what are they when these remain 

The ruin'd shells of hollow towers? 

LXXYII. 

What hope is here for modern rhyme 
To him, wo turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 



IN MEMORIAM. 



129 



Foreshortened in the tract of time? 

These mortal lullabies of pain 
May bind a book, may line a boy, 
May serve to curl a maiden's locks ; 

Or when a tliousand moons shall wane 

A man upon a stall may find, 
And, passing, turn the page that tells 
A grief, then changed to something else, 

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 

But what ofthat?Mydarken'd ways 
Shall ring with music all tlie same ; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame, 

To utter love more sweet than praise. 

LXXVIII. 

Again^ at Christmas did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth 
AlwThe silent snow possess'd the earth 

.Old calmly fell our Christmas-eve: 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

Tlie quiet sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind. 

Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace, 

And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 

Who show'd a token of distress? 
No single tear, no mark of pain : 

sorrow, then can sorrow wane ? 
grief, can grief be changed to less ? 

TO last regret, regret can die ! 

/ No — mixt with all this mystic frame, 
I Her deep relations are the same, 
\ But with long use her tears are dry. 

1 LXXIX. 

I \ More than my brothers are to me" — 
• Let this not vex thee, noble heart ! 

1 know thee of what force thou art 
'' 'To hold the costliest love in fee. 

But thou and I are one in kind, 
As moulded like in nature's mint ; 
And hill and wood and fiekl did print 

The same sweet forms in either mind. 
\ For us the same cold streamlet curl'd 
Thro' all his eddying coves ; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 

In whispers of the beauteous world. 

At one dear knee we proffer'd vows. 
One lesson from one book we learn'd. 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd 

To black and brown on kindred brows. 



And so my wealth resembles thine, 
But he was rich where I was poor, 
And he supplied my want the more 

As his unlikeness fitted mine. 

LXXX. 

Ir any vague desire should rise, 
That lioly Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side, 

And dropt the dust on 'tearless eyes ; 

Then fancy shapes, as fancy can, 
The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought. 

But stay'd in peace with God and man, 

I make a picture in the brain; 

I hear the sentence that be speaks; 
He bears the burthen of tlie weeks. 

But turns his burthen into gain. 

His credit thus shall set me free; 
And influence-rich to soothe and save, 
Unused example from tlie grave 

Reach out dead hands to comfort me. 

LXXXI. 

Could I hr-ve said while he was here 
„My love shall now no further range : 
There cannot come a mellower change, 
For now is love mature in ear." 
Love, then, had hope of richer store: 
What end is here to my complaint ? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 
„More years had made me love thee more." 
But Death returns an answer sweet; 
,/My sudden frost was sudden gain, 
And gave all ripeness to the grain. 
It might have drawn from after-heat." 

LXXXIT. 

I WAGE not any feud with Death 

I'or changes wrought on form and face; 

No lower life thaf earth's embrace 
May breed with him, can fright my faith. 
Eternal process moving on. 

From state to state the spirit walks; 

xind these are but the shatter'd stalks, 
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 
Nor blame I Death, because he bare 

The use of virtue out of earth : 

I know transplanted human worth 
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 
For this alone on Death I wreak 

The wrath that garners in my heart ; 

He put our lives so far apart ' 
We cannot hear each other speak. 



iSo 



TN 3fE3rORrj3f. 



Lxxxin. 

Dip down upon the northern sliore 
O sweet new-year delaying long ; 
Thou cloest expectant nature wrong; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place V 
Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons r 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 
Tlie little speedwell's darling blue. 
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, 

Luburnums, dropping-wells of fire. 

thou, new-year, delaying long, 
Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 
That'longs to burst a frozen bud, 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 



When I contemplate all alone 
The life that had been thine below. 
And fix my thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown ; 

I see thee sitting crown'd with good, 
A centra] warmth diffusing bliss 
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss. 

On all the branches of thy blood; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine : 
lor now the day was drav.ing on. 
When thou should'st link thy life with one 

Of mine own house, and boys of tliine 

Had babbled ,/Uncle'' on my knee; 
But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress other orange flower, 

Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. 

I seem to meet their least desire, 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine, 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire. 

I see myself an honour'd guest, 
Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk, 

Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; 

While now thy prosperous labour fills 
The lips of men with honest praise. 
And sun by sua the happy days 

Descend below the golden hills 

AVith promise of a morn as fair; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct by paths of growing powers, 

To reverence dud the silver hair j 



Till slowly worn earthly ro!>e, 

Her lavish mission richly wrought. 
Leaving great legacies ef thought, 

Thy spirit should fail from off the globe ; 

What time mine own might also flee, 
As link'd with thine in love and fate. 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 

To the other shore, involved in thee. 

Arrive at last the blessed goal, 
And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand, 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant ^r 
A backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content. 

LXXXV. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when 1 sorrow'd most, 
'Tis better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all — 

true in word, and tried in deed. 
Demanding, so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief, 

What kind of life is that I lead; 

And whether trust in things above 
Be dimm'd of sorrow, or sustain'd; 
And whether love for him have draiu'd 

My capabilities of love; 

Your words have virtue suoh as draws 
A faithful answer from the breast, 
Thro' light reproaches, half exprest, 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 

My blood an even tenor kept. 
Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal w:ills 

God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. 

The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state. 
In circle round the blessed gate, 

Received and gave him welcome there ; 

And led him thro' the blissful climes, 
And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sons of flesh 

Sliall gather in the cycled times. 

But I remain'd whose hopes were dim, 
Whose life, whose thoughts were little 

(worth, 
To wander on a darken'd earth, 
I Where all things round me breathed of him 



IN ME3£0RIA3I. 



131 



friendbhip, equal-poised control, 
heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 

solemn ghost, crowned soul ! 
Yet none could better know than I, 

How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands 

By which wfc dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, tho' left alone, 
His being working in mine own. 

The footsteps of his life in mine; 

A life that all the Muses deck'd 
With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 

AU-sublilising intellect : 

And so my passion hath not swerved 
To works of weakness, but I find 
An image comforting the mind. 

And in my grief a strength reserved. 

Likewise the imaginative woe. 

That loved to handle spiritual strife, 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life. 

But in the present broke the blow. 

My pulses therefore beat again 
For other friends that once I met ; 
Ivor can it suit me to forget 

The mighty hopes that make us men, 

1 woo your love : I count it crime 
To mourn for any overmuch ; 
I, the divided half of such 

A friendship as had master'd Time ; 

Which masters Time indeed, and is 
Eternal, separate from fears : 
The all-assuming months and years 

Can take no part away from this : 

But Summer on the steaming floods, 

xindSpringthat swells the narrow brooks, 
xind Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 

That gather in the waning woods, 

And every pulse of wind and wave 
Recalls, in change of light or gloom, 
My old affection of the tomb, 

And my prime passion in the grave : 

My old affection of the tomb, 
A part of stillness, yearns to speak : 
./Arise, and get thee forth and seek 

A friendship for the years to come. 

I watch thee from the quiet shore -. 
Thy spirit up to mine can reach; 



But in dear words of human speech 
We two communicate no more." 

And I, „Can clouds of nature stain 
The starry clearness of the free ? 
How is it? Canst thou feel for me 

Some painless sympathy with pain?^' 

And lightly does the whisper fall ; 

,/Tis hard for thee to fathom this ; 

I triumph in conclusive bliss, 
And that serene result of all." 

So hold I commerce with the dead; 
Or so methinks tlie dead would say ; 
Or so shall grief with symbols play, 

And pining life be faucy-fed, 

]S'ow looking to some settled end, 

That these things pass, and I shall prove 
A meeting somewhere, love with love, 

I crave your pardon, my friend ; 

If not so fresh, with love as true, 
I, clasping brother-hands, aver 
I could not, if I would, transfer 

The whole I felt for him to you. 

Yor which be they that hold apart 
The promise of the golden hours? 
rirst love, first friendship, equal powers, 

That marry with the virgin heart. - 

Still mine, that cannot but deplore, 
That beats within a lonely place. 
That yet remembers his embrace, 

But at his footstep leaps no more, 

My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest 
Quite in the love of Avhat is gone, 
But seeks to beat in time with one 

That warms another living breast. 

Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 
Knowing the primrose yet is dear, 
The primrose of the later year, 

As not unlike to that of Spring. 

LXXXYI. 

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of eveniug over brake and bloom 
And meadow, slowly breathing bare 
The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, 
xind shadowing down the horned flood 
In ripples, fan my brows and blow 
The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame. till Doubt andDeath 



133 



IN MEMORIJM. 



Ill bretlireii, let the fancy fly 

From belt to belt of crimson seas 
On leagues of odour streaming far, 
To where in yonder orient star 

A hundred spirits whisper, /Peace." 

LXXXVII. 

I Past beside the reverend walls 
In which of old I wore the gown ; 
I roved at random thro' the town, 

And saw the tumult of the halls ; 

And heard once more in college fanes 
The storm their high-built organs make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 

The prophets blazon'd on the panes; 

And caught or re more the distant shout, 
The measui . d pulse of racing oars 
Among thr willows; paced the shores 

And many a bridge, and all about 

The same -_■• ray flats again, and felt 
The saii.e, but not the same; and last 
Up til it long walk of limes I past 

To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

Another name was on the door: 
I linger'd; all within was noise 
Of song, and clapping hands, and boys 

That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; 

Where once we held debate, a band 
Of youthful friends, on mind and art ; 
And labour, and the changing mart, 

And all the framework of the land; 

When one would aim an arrow fair, 
But send it slackly from the string; 
And one would pierce an outer ring, 

And one an inner, here and there; 

And last the master-bowman, he, 

AVould cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 

The rapt oration flowing free 

1 rom point to point, with power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law. 
To those conclusions when we saw 

The God within him light his face. 

And seem to lift the form, and glow 
In azure orbits heavenly-wise; 
And over those ethereal eyes 

The bar of Michael Angelo, 
Lxxxviri. 

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 
Ptings Eden thro' tlie budded quicks, 
tell me where the senses mix, 

T ell me where the passions meet, 



Whence radiate : fierce extremes emplo 
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 
And in tlie midmost heart of grief 

Thy passion clasps a secret joy: 

And I — my harp would prelude woe — 
I cannot all command the strings; 
The glory of the sun of things 

Will flash along the chords and go. 

LXXXIX. 

Witch-elms that counterchange the flooif 
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright : 
And thoUjWith all thy breadth and height 

Of foliage, towering sycamore ; 

How often, hither wandering down, 
My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
And shook to all the liberal air 

The dust and din and steam of to^^ss: 

He brought an eye for all he saw; 

He mixt in all our simple sports ; 

They pleased him, fresh trom br.a'^lliug 
(courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 

j oy to him in this retreat, 
Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking thro' thelieat, 

sound to rout the brood of cares^ 
The sweep of scythe in morning dew. 
The gust that round the garden flew. 

And tumbled half the mellowing pears ^. 

bliss, when all in circle drawn 
About him, heart and ear were fed:. 
To hear him, as he lay and read 

The Tuscan poets on the lawn: 

Or in the all-golden afternoon 
A guest, or happy sister, sung, 
Or here she brought the harp and flung 

A ballad to the brightening moon : 

]S^or less it pleased in livelier moods. 
Beyond the bounding hill to stray, 
And break the livelong summer day 

With banquet in the distant woods; 

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, 
Discuss'd the books to love or hate. 
Or toucli'd the changes of the state^ 

Or threaded some Socratic dream ; 

But if I praised the busy town. 
He loved to rail against it still, 
1 or ,/grouud in yonder social mill 

We rub each other's angles down, 



IN ME310RIAM. 



133 



And merge" he said „in form and gloss 
The picturesque of man and man." 
We talk'd : the stream beneath us ran, 

The wine-flask lying couch'd in moss, 

Or cool'd within the glooming wave; 
And last, returning from afar. 
Before the crimson-circled star 

Had fall'n into her father's grave, 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers. 
We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail, 

And buzzings of the honied hours, 
xc. 

He tasted love with half his mind. 
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling 

This bitter seel among mankind; 

That could the dead, whose dying eyes 
Were closed with wail, resume their life. 
They would but find in child and wife 

An iron welcome when they rise : 

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, 
To pledge them with a kindly tear. 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here. 

To count their memories half divine; 

But if they came who past away, 
Behold their brides in other hands; 
The hard heir strides about their lands, 

And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho' their sons were none of these, 
Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 

The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou back to me: 

Whatever change the years have wrought, 
I find not yet one lonely thought 

That cries against my wish for thee, 
xci. 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch. 
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Hits by the sea blue bird of Marcli ; 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers. 
The hope of unaccomplish'd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer's hourly-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet. 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat. 

That ripple round the lonely grange ; 

Come : not in watches of the night, 



But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form, 
And like a finer light in light. 

XCII. 

li^ any vision should reveal 
Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
As but the canker of the brain : 

Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 

To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 

Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year; 
And tho' the months, revolving near, 

Should prove the phantom- warning true. 

They might not seem thy prophecies, 
But spiritual presentiments. 
And such refraction of events 

As often rises ere they rise, 
xcm. 

I SHALL not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land. 

Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay V 

No visual shade of some one lost, 
But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb ; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

0, therefore from thy sightless range 
With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
0, from the distance of the abyss 

Of tenfold- complicated change. 

Descend, and toucli, and enter ; hear 
The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My Ghost may feel that thine is near, 
xciv. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine aft'ections bold 
Should be the man whose thought would 
(hold 

An hour's communion with the dead. 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast. 
Imaginations calm and fair, 
The memory like a cloudless air, 

The conscience as a sea at rest : 



134 



IN MEMORIAM. 



But when the heart is full of din, 
And doubt beside the portal waits, 
They can but listen at the gates, 

And hear tlie household jar within, 
xcv. 

By night we linger'd on the lawn, 
lor underfoot the herb was dry ; 
And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 

The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

And calm that let the tapers burn 
Unwavering : not a cricket chirr'd : 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on tlie board the fluttering urn : 

And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with^ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes; 

While now we sang old songs that peal'd 
From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease. 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one, 
Withdrew themselves from "me and night. 
And in the house light after light 

Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart ; I read 
Of that glad year which once had been. 
In those fall'n leaves which kept their 
(green. 

The noble letters of the dead : 

Aod strangely on the silence broke 
The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell, 
On doubts that drive the coward back, 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by line, 

The dead man touch'd me from the past, 
And all at once it seem'd at last 

His living soul was fiash'd on mine, 

And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
About empyreal heights of thought, 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, 

.^onain music measuring out 
The steps ofTime— the shocks ofChance— 
The blows of Death. At length my trance 

Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. 



Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 
In matter-moulded forms of speech, 
Or ev'n for intellect to reach 
Thro' memory that which I became: 
Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd 
The knolls once more where couch'd at 

(ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field : 
And suck'd from out the distant gloom 
A breeze began to tremble o'er 
The large leaves of the sycamore. 
And fluctuate all the still perfume. 
And gathering freshlier overhead, 
Rock'd the fuU-foliaged elms, and swuug 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 
The lilies to and fro, and said 
,,The dawn, the dawn,'' and died away ; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, 
To broaden into boundless day. 

XCYI. 

You say, but with no touch of scorn, 
Swee^t-hearted, you, whose light blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies. 

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 

I know not : one indeed I knew 
In many a subtle question versed. 
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first, 

But ever strove to make it true: 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 

Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts andgather'd strength^ 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them: thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own ; 
And Power was with him in the night. 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud, 
As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

XCVII. 

My love has talk'd with rocks and trees ; 
He finds on misty mountain-ground 
His own vast shadow glory-crown'd 

He sees himself in all he sees. 



m 3.fF.M0RIA3t 



1S5 



Two partners of a married life — 
I looked on these and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mystery, 

Andof my spirit as of a wife. 

These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
Their hearts of old have heat in tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 

Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never past away ; 
The days she never can forget 
Are earnest that he loves her yet, 

Whate'er the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart, 
He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 

He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
He reads the secret of the star. 
He seems so near and yet so far. 

He looks so cold: she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 
A wither'd violet is her bliss : 
She knows not what his greatness is: 

For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 
Of early faith and plighted vows; 
She knows but matters of the house, 

And he, he knows a thousand things. 

Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 
She darkly feels him great and wise, 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 

„I cannot understand : I love." 

XCVIII. 

You leave us : you will see the Rhine, 
And those fair hills I sail'd below. 
When I was there with him; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 

To wbere he breathed his latest breath, 
That City. All her splendour seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 

On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

Let her great Danube rolling fair 
Enwind her isles, unmark'd of me : 
I have not seen, I will not see 

Vienna ; rather dream that there, 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts 

The birth, the bridal; friend from friend 
Is oftener parted, fathers bend 

Above more graves, a thousand wants 

Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey 



By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
Her shadow on the blaze of kings: 

And yet myself hare heard him say. 

That not in any mother town 
With statelier progress to and fro 
The dou])]e tides of chariots flow 

By park and suburb under brown 

Of lustier leaves: no more content, 
He told me, lives in any crowd, 
When all is gay with lamps, and loud 

With sport and song, in booth and tent. 

Imperial halls, or open plain ; 
And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 
The rocket molten into flakes 

Of crimson or in emerald rain, 
xcix. 

BiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds, 
So thick with lowing of the herds, 

Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who treniblest thro' thy darkling red 
On you swoU'n brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past, 

And woodlands holy to the dead ; 

Who murmurestinthefoliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care, 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves ; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
To myriads on the genial earth, 
Memories of bridal, or, of birth. 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

wheresoever those may be, 
Betwixt the slumber of the poles. 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 
c. 

1 CLIMB the hill : from end to end 

Of all the landscape underneath, 
I find no place that does not breathe 

Some gracious memory of my friend; 

No gray old grange, or lonely fold. 
Or low morass and whispering reed, 
Or simple stile from mead to mead, 

Or sheepwalk up the windy wold ; 

jSTor hoary knoll of ash and haw 
That hears the latest linnet trill, 
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill, 

And haunted by the wrangling daw; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock j 



iS6 



IN MEMORUM, 



IsoT pastoral rivulet that swerves 

To left and right thro* meadowy cunes. 
That feed the mothers of the flock • 
But each has pleased a kindred eye, 

And each reflects a kindlier day ; 

And, leaving these, to pass away, 
I think once more he seems to die. 

CI. 

Uxwatch'd, the garden bougli shall sway, 
The tender blossom flutter down, 
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 

This maple burn itself away ; 

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 
Ray round with flames her disk of seed, 
Ani many a rose-carnation feed 

Vv'ith summer spice the humming air-, 

Unloved, by many a sandy bar, 
The brook shall babble down the plain. 
At noon or when the lesser wain 

Is twisting round the polar star ; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove. 

And flood the haunts of hern and crake; 
Or into silver arrows l)reak 

The sailing moon in creek and cove ; 

Till from the garden and the wild 
A fresh association blow, 
And year by year the landscape grow 

Familiar to the stranger's child; 

As year by year the labourer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
xind year by year our memory fades 

From all the circle of the hills/ 

CII. 

We leave the well-beloved place 
Where first we gazed upon the sky ; 
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 

Will shelter one of stranger race. 

We go, but ere we go from home. 
As down the garden-walks I move, 
Two spirits of a diverselove 

Contend for loving masterdom. 

One wliispers, here thy boyhood sung 
Long since its matin song, and heard 
The low love-language of the bird 

In native hazels tassel-hung. 

The other answers, „ Yea, but here 
Thy feet have stray'd in after hours 
With thy lost friend among the bowers. 

And this hath made them trebly dear.'' 

These two have striven half the day, 



And each prefers his separate claim. 
Poor rivals in a losing game. 
That will not yield each other way. 

I turn to go : my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields and farms : 

They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret, 

cm." 
Ox that last night before we went 

From out the doors where I was bred, 

I dream'd a vision of the dead. 
Which left my after-morn content. 

Methought I dwelt within a hall, 
xind maidens with me : distant hills 
From hidden summits fed with rills 

A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 

They sang of what is wise and good 

And gaceful. In the centre stood 
A statue veil'd, to which they sang ; 
And which, tho' veil'd, was known to me, 

The shape of him I loved, and love 

For ever: then flew in a dove 
And brought a summons from the sea : 
And when they learnt that I must go 

They wept and wail'd, but led the way 

To where a little shallop lay 
At anchor in the flood below ; 
And on by many a level mead. 

And shadowing bluff that made tlie banks, 

We glided winding under ranks 
Of iris, and the golden reed ; 
And still as vaster grew the shore. 

And roll'd the floods in grander space. 

The maidens gather'd strength and grace 
And presence, lordlier than before; 
And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch'd them, wax'd in every limb; 

I felt tlie thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan's heart ; 
As one would sing the death of war, 

And one would chant the history 

Of that great race, which is to be. 
And one the shaping of a star; 
Until the forward-creeping tides 

Began to foam, and we to draw 

From deep to deep, to where we saw 
A great ship lift her shining sides. 
The man we loved was there on deck, 

But thrice as large as man he bent 



i 



IN ME3I0RIA3I. 



137 



To greet us. Up the side I went, 
And fell in silence on liis neck : 
Whereat those maidens with one mind 

Bewail'd their lot ; I did them wrong : 

„We served thee here," they said, „solong\ 
And wilt thou leave us now beliind ?" 
So rapt I was, they could not win 

An answer from my lips, but he 

Replying, „Enter likewise ye 
iind go with us :" they enter'd in. 
And while the wind began to sweep 

A music out of sheet and shioud, 

AVe steer'd hertowarda crimson cloud 
That landlike slept along the deep. 

CIV. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ ; 

The moon is hid, the night is stil ; 

A single church below the hill 
Is pealing, folded in the mist. 
A single peal of bells below, 

That wakens at this hour of rest 

A single murmur in the breast, 
That these are not tlie bells I know. 
Like stranger's voices here they sound. 

In lands where not a memory strays, 

Nor landmark breathes of other days, 
But all is ncAV unhallow'd ground. 

cv. 
To-night ungather'd let us leave 

This laurel, let this holly stand : 

We live within the stranger's land, 
And strangely falls our Christmas eve. 
Our father's dust is left alone 

And silent under other snows : 

There in due time the woodbine blows, 
The violet comes, but we are gone. 
jSTo more shall wayward grief abuse 

The genial hour with mask and mime ; 

Tor change of place, like growth of time, 
Has broke the bond of dying use. 
Let cares that petty shadows cast, 

By which our lives are chiefly proved, 

A little spare the night I loved, 
And hold it solemn to the past. 
But let no footstep beat the floor, 

iS'or bowl of wassail mantle warm; 

For who would keep an ancient form 
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more? 
Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; 

Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown; 

No d^nce, no motion, save alone 



What lightens in the lucid cast 
Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed ; 

Runout your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 

cvi. 
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The flying cloud, the frosty light : 

The year is dying in the night : 
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 
Rin^ out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 

The year is going, let him go ; 
Ring out the false, ring in the true. 
Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 

For those that here we see no more ; 

Ring out the feud of rich and poor. 
Ring in redress to all mankind. 
Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife; 

Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
With sweeter manners, purer laws. 
Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 

The faithless coldness of the times ; 

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 
Buth ring the fuller minstrel in. 
Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

Tiie civic slander and the spite; 

Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ring in the common love of good. 
Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old. 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 
Ring in the valia,nt man and free. 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 

Ring out the darkness of the land. 
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

cvii. 
It is the day when he was born, 

A bitter day that early sank 

Behind a purple-frosty bank 
Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. 
The time admits not flowers or leaves 

To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 

The blast of North and East, and ice 
Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves. 
And bristles all the brakes and thorns 

To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 

Above the wood which grides and clangs 
Its leafless ribs and iron horns 



138 



IN MEM0RIA3I. 



To'j:ether, iu the drifts that pass 
To darkeu on the rolliiiu; brine 
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, 

Arrange the board and brim the glass; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
To make a solid core of heat ; 
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 

Of all things ev'u as he were by; 

We keep the day. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him, whate'er he be, 

And sing the songs he loved to hear. 

CVIII. 

I WILL not shut me from my kind, 

And, lest I stiffen into stone, 

I will not eat my heart alone, 
iXor feed with sighs a passing Avind : 
What profit lies in barren faith. 

And vacant yearning, tho' with might 

To scale the heaven's highest height, 
Or dive below the wells of Death? 
AVhat find I in the highest place. 

But mine own phantom chanting hymns ? 

And on the depths of death there swims 
The rertex of a human face. 
I'll rather take what fruit may be 

Of sorrow under human skies : 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us Avise, 
AMiatever wisdom sleep with thee. 

cix. 
Hj-:AKT-ArrLUENC£ in discursive talk 

Trom household fountains never dry; 

The critic clearness of an eye. 
That saw thro' all the Muses' walk ; 
Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man ; 

Impassion'd logic, which outran 
The hearer in its fiery course; 
Iligli nature amorous of the good, 

But touch'd witli no ascetic gloom ; 

And passion pure in snowy bloom 
Tliro'all the years of April blood; 
A love of freedom rarely felt, 

Of freedom in her regal seat 

Of England; not the schoolboy heat, 
Tlie blind hysterics of the Celt; ' 
And manhood fused witli female grace 

Jn such a sort, the child would twine 

A trustful hand, unask'd, in thine, 
And find his comfort in thy face; 
-ill these iiave Wien, an4 tlice mine ejes 



Have look'd on : if they look'd in vai 
My shvime is greater who remain, 

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise, 
ex. 

Thy converse drew us with delight, 
The men of rathe and riper years : 
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 

Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 

On thee the loyal-hearted hung, 
The proud was half disarm'd of pride, 
iS'or cared the serpent at thy side 

To flicker with his double tongue. 

The stern were mild Avhen thou wert by, 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was soften'd, and he knew not why ; 

While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 
And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 
And loved them more, that they were thine, 

The graceful tact, the Christian art; 

Not mine the sweetnesss or the skill, 
But mine the love, that will not tire, 
And born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 

CXI. 

The churl in spirit, up or down 
Along the scale of ranks, thro' all. 
To him who grasps a golden ball, 

By blood a king , at heart a clown ; 

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
His want in forms for fashion's sake, 
Will let his coltish nature break 

At seasons thro' the gilded pale : 

For who can always act? but he, 
To whom a thousand memories call. 
Not being less but more than all 

The gentleness he seem'd to be. 

Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the fl-ower 

And native growth of noble mind; 

Nor ever narrowness or spite, 
Or villain fancy fleeting by. 
Drew in the expression of an eye, 

Where God and Nature met in light; 

And thus he bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every cliarfatan, 

And soil'd with all igno])le use. 

CXII. 

HiOH wisdom holds m^^ wisdom less, 



IN MEMORIJM. 



1S9 



That I, who g-aze with temperate eves 

On glorious insufficiencies, 
Set light by narrower perfectness. 
But thou, that fillest all the room 

Of all my love, art reason why 

I seem to cast a careless eye 
On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 
For what wert thou- some novel power 

Sprang up for ever at a touch, 

And hope could never hope too much, 
In watching thee from hour to hour, 
Large elements in order brought. 

And tracts of calm from tempest made, 

And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 
In vassal tides that follow'd thought. 

ex III. 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise; 

Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 

Which not alone had guided me. 
But served the seasons that may rise ; 
For can I doubt, who knew the keen 

In intellect, with force and skill 

To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — 
I doubt not what thou wouldst have been : 
A life in civic action warm, 

A soul on highest mission sent, 

A potent voice of Parliament, 
A pillar steadfast in the storm, 
Should licensed boldness gatlier force, 

Becoming, when the time has birtli, 

A lever to uplift the earth 
And roll it in another course, 
TVith thousand shocks that come and go, 

With agonies, with energies, 

With overthrowings, and with cries, 
And undulations to and fro. 

cxiv. 
Who loves not KnoAvledge : Who shall rail 

Against her beauty r May she mix 

With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 
Her pillars: Let her work prevail, 
But on her forehad sits a fire : 

She sets her forward countenance 

And leaps into the future chance, 
Submitting all things to desire. 
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 

She cannot fight the fear of death. 

What is she, cut from love and faith, 
But some wild Pallas from the brain 
Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst 

All barriers in her onward race 



For power. Let her know he? place; 
She is the second, not the first. 
A higher hand must make her mild. 

If all be not in vain ; and guide 

Her footsteps, moving side by side 
With wisdom, like the younger child: 
For she is eartlily of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 

0, friend, who earnest to thy goal 
So early, leaving me behind, 
I would the great world grew like thee, 

Who grewest not alone in power 

And knowledge, but by year and hour 
In reverence and in charity. 

CXY. 

Xow fades the last long streak of snow, 
ZS'ow burgeons every'maze of quick 
About tlie flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 

!N*ow rings the woodland loud and long, 
The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
And drown'd in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes i sightless song. 

Xow dance the lights on lawn and lea, 
Tjie flocks are whiter down the vale, 
And milkier every milky sail 

On winding stream or distant sea; 

Wliere now the seamew pipes, or dives 
In yonder greening gleam, and fly 
The happy birds, that change their sky 

To build and brood ; that live their lives* 

From land to land : and in my breast 
Spring wakens too ; and my regret 
Becomes an April violet, 

And buds and blossoms like the rest. 

CXYI. 

Is it, then, regret for buried time 
That keenlier in sweet April wakes. 
And meets the year, and gives and take 

The colours of the crescent prime r 

Xot all : the songs, the stirring air, 
The life re-orient out of dust. 
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 

yot all regret : the face will shine 
Upon me, while I muse alone ; 
And that dear voice, I once have known, 

Still speak to me of me and mine: 

Yet less of sorrow lives in me 
For days of happy commune dead; 
Less yearning for the friendship fled. 



340 



IN MFiV02flJM. 



Than some strong bond which is to be< 

CXVII. 

DAYS and honi^, your work is this, 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace, 

For fuller p:aiu of after bliss : 
That out of distance might ensue 

Desire of nearness doubly sweet; 

And unto meeting when we meet, 
Delight a hundredfold accrue, 
For every grain of sand that runs, 

And every span of shade that steals. 

And every kiss of toothed wheels 
And all the courses of the suns. 

CXVIII. 

CoNTEiiPLATE all this work of Time, 
The giant labouring in his youth; 
Xor dream of human love and truth. 

As dying >»'ature's earth and lime; 

But trust that those we call the dead 
Are l)reathers of an ampler day 
For ever nobler ends. They say, 

The solid earth whereon we tread. 

In tracts of fluent heat began, 
And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 

Till at the last arose the man ; 

"Who throve and branch'd from clime to 
" (clime, 
The herald of a higher race, 
And of himself in higher place. 

If so he type this work of time 

Within himself, from more to more; 
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore, 

But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 

And batter'd with the shocks of doom 

To shape and use. Arise and fly 
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
Move upward, working out the beast, 

And let the ape and tiger die. 

CXTX. 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more ; the city sleeps ; 

1 smell the meadow in the street ; 
I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long- withdrawn 



A light-blue lane of early dairn. 

And think of early days and thee, 

xind bless thee, for thy lips are bland 
And bright the friendship of thine eye; 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh 

I take the pressure of thine hand, 
cxx. 

I TRUST I have not wasted breath : 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 

Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death; 

IS'ot only cunning casts in clay: 
Let Science prove we are, and then 
"What matters Science unto men, 

At least to me ? I would not stay. 

Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ape, 

But I was born to other things. 

CXXT. 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun 
And ready, thou, to die with him, 
Thou watchest all things ever dim 

And dimmer, and a glory done : 

The team is loosen'd from the wain, 
The boat is drawn upon the shore; 
Thou listenest to the closing door, 

And life is darken'd in the brain. 

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, 
By thee the world's great work is heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird; 

Behind thee comes the greater light : 

The market boat is on the stream, 
And voices hail it from the brink ; 
Tliou hear'st the village hammer clink, 

And see'st the moving of the team. 

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name 
For what is one, the first, the last. 
Thou, like my present and my past, 

Thy place is changed; thou art the same. 

CXXII. 

Oh, wast thou with me, dearest then, 
While i rose up against my doom, 
And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom, 

To bare the eternal Heavens again, 

To feel once more, in placid awe, 
The strong imagination roll 
A sphere of stars about my soul, 

In all her motion one with law; 

If thou wert with me, and the grave 
Divide us not, be with me now. 



JN MEMORJAM. 



Ul 



And enter in ut breast and f)row> 
Till all my blood, a fuller wave, 
Be quicken'd with a livelier breath, 

And like an inconsiderate boy, 

As in the former flash of joy, 
I slip the thoughts of life and' death ; 
And all the breeze of Fancy blows, 

And every dew-drop paints a bow. 

The wizard lightnings deeply glow, 
And every thought breaks out a rose. 

CXXIIT. 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
There where the long street roars.hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 
The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands ; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 
But in my spirit will I dwell, 
And dream my dream, and hold it true ; 
For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 

cxxiv. 
That which we dare invoke to bless ; 
Our dearest faith : our ghastliest doubt ; 
He, They, One, All] within, without; 
The Power in darkness whom we guess , 
I found Him not in world or sun. 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye ; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun : 
If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
I heard a voice „believe no more'' 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 
A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath the heart 
Stood up and answer'd „I have felt." 
No, like a child in doubt and fear-. 
But that blind clamour made me wise ; 
Then was I as a child that cries. 
But, crying, knows his father near ; 
And what I am beheld again 
What is, and no man understands ; 
And out of darkness came the hands 
That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 

cxxv. 
Whatever I have said or sung. 

Some bitter notes my harp would give, 



Yea, tho' there often seem*d to live 
A contradiction on the tongue. 
Yet Hope had never lost her youth ; 

She did but look through dimmer eyes; 

Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, 
Because he felr so fix'd in truth : 
And if the song were full of care, 

He breathed the spirit of the song; 

And if the words w^ere sweet and strong 
He set his royal signet there; 
Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 

And this electric force, that keeps 
xi thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

CXXYI. 

Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 

Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
An d will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass'd by his faithful guard. 

And hear at times a sentinel 
Who moves about from place to place. 
And whispers to the worlds of space, 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

CXXVIT. 

And all is well, tho' faith and form 
Be sunder'd in the night of fear ; 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm. 

Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 

Should pile her barricades with dead. 

But ill for him that wears a crown, 
And him, the lazar, in his rags : 
They tremble, the sustaining crags; 

The spires of ice are toppled down. 

And molten up, and r oar in fl ood ; 
The fortress crashes from on high, 
The brute earth lightens to the sky, 

And the great /Eon sinks in blood, 

And compass'd by the fires of Hell ; 
While thou, dear spirit, happy star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar. 

And smilest, knowing all is wellr 

CXXVIII. 

The love that rose on stronger wings, 
I Unpalsied when he met with Death, 



149 



IN BIEMORUM. 



Is comrade of the lesser faith 

That sees the course of human things. 

2s'"o doubt vast eddies in the flood 
Of onward time shall yet be made, 
And throned races may degrade; 

Yet ye mysteries of good, 

"Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 
If all your office had to do 
With old results that look like new: 

If this were all your mission here, 

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, 
To fool the crowd with glorious lies. 
To cleave a creed in sects and cries. 

To change the bearing of a word, 

To shift an arbitrary power, 

To cramp the student at his desk. 
To make old bareness picturesque 

And tuft with grass a feudal tower : 

Why then my scorn might well descend 
On you and yours. I see in part 
That all as in some piece of art. 

Is toil cooperant to an end. 
cxxix. 

Dead friend, far off, my lost desire, 
So far, so near in woe and weal ; 

loved the most, when most I feel 
There is a lower and a higher ; 
Known and unknown; human, divine; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; 
Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 

Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good ! 
And mingle all the world with thee. 

cxxx. 
Thy voice is on the rolling air; 

1 hear thee where the waters run ; 
Thou standest in the rising sun, 

And in the setting thou art fair. 
What art thou then? I cannot guess; 

iiut tho' I seem in star and flower 

To feel thee some diffusive power, 
I do not therefore love thee Jess; 
My love involves tlie love before ; 

My love is vaster passion now ; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 
Far off thou art, but ever nigh : 

I}iavetlieesti]l,and I rejoice; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice; 



I shall not lose thee tho* I die. 
cxxxi. 

LIVING will that shalt endure 
When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spiritual rock. 
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 
That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquer'd years 
To one that with us works, and trust, 
With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 
And all we flow from, soul in soul. 

TRUE and tried, so well and long, 

Demand not thou a marriage lay . 

In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 
Nor have I felt so much of bliss 

Since first he told me that he loved 

A daughter of our house, nor proved 
Since that dark day a day like this ; 
Tho' I since then have number'd o'er 

Some thrice three years: they went and 
(came, 

Eemade the blood and changed the frame, 
And yet is love not less, but more ; 
No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret, 

But like a statue solid-set. 
And moulded in colossal calm, 
llegret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown, 

For I myself with these have grown 
To something greater than before ; 
Which makes appear the songs I made 

As echoes out of weaker times. 

As half but idle brawling rhymes, 
The sport of random sun and sihade. 
But where is she, the bridal flower. 

That must be made a wife ere noon ? 

She enters, glowing like the moon 
Of Eden on its bridal bower : 
On me she bends her blissful eyes 

And then on thee ; they meetThy look 

And brighten like the star that shook 
Betwixt the palms of paradise. 
when her life was yet in bud. 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 

For thee she grew, for tl)ee she grows 



IN JIEJIORIJjL 



US 



For ever, and as fair as good. 

And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 

As gentle; liberal-minded, great, 

Consistent; wearing all that weight 
Of learning lightly like a flower. 
But now set out : the noon is near, 

And I must give away the bride; 

She fears not, or with thee beside 
And me behind lier, will not fear : 
1 or I tliat danced her on my knee, 

That watch'd her on her nurse's arm, 

That shielded all her life from harm 
At last must part with her to thee; 
Now waiting to be made a wife, 

Her feet, mj^darling, on the dead ; 

Their pensive tablets round her head, 
And the most living words of life 
Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 

The „wilt thou" answer'd^ and again 

The „wilt thou" ask'd till out of twain 
Her sweet ,,1 will" has made ye one. 
Now sign your names, which shall be read, 

Mute symbols of a joyful morn, 

By village eyes as yet' unborn ; 
The names are sign'd, and overhead 
Begins the clash and clang that tells 

The joy to every wandering breeze ; 

The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 
The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 
happy hour, and happier hours 

Await them. Many a merry face 

Salutes them — maidens of the place, 
That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 
happy hour, behold the bride 

"VMth him to whom her band I gave. 

They leave the porch, they pass the grave 
That has to-day its sunny side. 
To-day the grave is bright for me, 

For them the light of life increased, 

Who stay to share the morning feast, 
Who rest to-night beside the sea. 
Let all my genial spirits advance 

To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 

My drooping memory will not shun 
The foaming grape of eastern France. 
It circles round, and fancy plays. 

And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom, 

As drinking health to bride and groom 
We wish them store of happy days. 
Xor count me all to blague if I 



Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on. 
And those white-favour'd horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger ; it is late ; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 
From little cloudlets on the grass, 
But sweeps away as out we pass 

To range the woods, to roam the park, 

Discussing how their courtship grew, 
And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she look'd, and what he said, 

And back we come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee, 

The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health, 

The crowning cup, the three-times three, 

And last the dance; — till I retire: 
Dumb is that tower which spake so loud : 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud, 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

And rise, moon, from yonder down. 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapour sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town. 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 
And catch at every mountain head. 
And o'er the friths'that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills ; 

And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall ; 
And breaking let the splendour fall. 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest, and ocean sounds, 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A shoul shall draw from out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds. 

And, moved thro' life of lower phase. 
Result in man, be born and think, 
And act and love, a closer link 

Betwixt us and the crowning race 

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

Is Nature like an open book ; 

No longer half-akin to brute. 
For all we thought and loved and did, 
Ami hoped, and sufer'd, is but seed 



lU 



THE P BIX CESS J A MEDLEY. 



Of whiit in them is tiower and fruit ; 
AVhereof the mau, that with nie trod 

This planet, was a noble type 

Appearing ere the times were ripe, 
That friend of mine who lives in God, 
That God, which ever lives and loves, 

One God, one law, one element. 

And one far-off divine event, 
To w^hich the whole creation moves. 

THE PRINCESS. 

A MEDLEY. 
PKOLOGUE. 

SiE Walter Vivia:\' all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon 
His tenantSjWifeand child, and thither half 
The neighbouring borough with their insti- 

(tute 
Of Avhich he was the patron. I was there 
I'rom college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too, — with others of our set, 
I'ive others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the 
(house, 
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
iloAvers of all heavens, and lovelier than 

(their names, 
Grew side by side : and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, 
HugeAmmonites,and the hrst bones ofTime; 
And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, 
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 
The cursedMalayan crease, and battle-clubs 
From the isles of palm: and higher on the 

(walls, 
Betwixtthe monstrous hornsof elk anddeer. 
His own forefathers' arms and armour hung. 

And ,/this'' he said /was Hugh's at Agin- 
(court ; 
And tliat was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon: 
A good knight he ! we keep a chronicle 
With all about him" — which he brought, 

(and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with 

(knights 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died; 
And raixt Avitli these, a lady, one that arm'd 



Her own fair head, and sallyiuo: thro' the 

(gate. 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her 

(walls. 

,/0 miracle of women," and the book, 
„0 noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
Is or bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's 

(death. 
But now when all was lost or seem'd as 

(lost — 
Her stature rnore than morial in the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the 

(gate, 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, 
And some were push'd with lances from the 

(rock. 
And part were drown'd within the Avhirling 

(brook: 
miracle of noble womanhood 1" 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle: 
And, I all rapt in this, ,;Come out,'' he said, 
,/To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." Wc went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park: strange was the sight 

(to me ; 
For all the slopin g pasture murmur'd, sown 
With happy facts and with holiday: 
There moved the multitude, a thousand 

(heads: 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font 

(of stone 
And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 
The fountain of the moment, playing now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danced like a wisp ; and somewhat lower 

(down 
A man with knobs and wares and vials fired 
A cannon : Echo answer'd in her sleep 
From hollow fields: and here weretelescopes 
For azure views ; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round 

(the lake 
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied 
And shook the lilies: percli'd about the 

(knolls 
A dozen angry modelsjett^d steams 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



145 



A petty railway rau: a fire-balloon 
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 
And dropt a fairy parachute and past : 
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 
Between the mimic stations; so that sport 
Went band in hand withScience; otherwhere 
Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamour 

(bowl'd 
And stump'd the wicket^babies roU'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass, and men and 

(maids 
Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' 

(light 
And shadow, while the t wangling violin 
Struck up Avith Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to 

(end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of 
(the time; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 
Came to the ruins, High-arch'd and ivy- 

(claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they 

(gave 
The park, the crowd, the house; but all 

(within 
The sward wat trim as any garden lawn : 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
x\nd Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
Trom neighbour seats; and there was Ralph 

(himself, 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 
Half child half woman as she was, had 

(wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm. 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk. 
That made the old warrior from his ivied 

(nook 
Glow like a sunbeam-, near liis tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, 
And there we join'd them ; then the maiden 

(Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it 

(preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd, 
Andall things great;butwe,unworthier,told 
Of college : he had climb'd across the spikes, 
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the 

(bws. 



And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs; and 

(one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common meu, 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
xind one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
Yeneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd above their heads 
(I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought 
My book to mind -. and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from 

(her walls 
And much I praised her nobleness, and 

„ Where," 
xisk'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him)„lives there sucha womanuow'r" 

Quick answer'd Lilia ,/There are thou- 
sands now 
Sucli women, but convention beats them 

(down : 
It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 
You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 
Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you 

(then, 
That love to keep us children ! I wish 
That I were some great princess, I would 

(build 
Far oif from men a college like a man's, 
And I would teach them all that men are 

(taught ; 
We are twice as quick!'' And here she shook 

(aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her 

(curls. 

And one said smiling „Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and 

(flaunt 
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for 

(deans. 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden 

(hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty 

(gowns, 
But move as rich asEmperor-moths,or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 
If there were many Lilias in the brood, 
However deep you might embower the nest, 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She taj)t her tinj silien-sandal'd foot: 



146 



THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 



^That's your light way; but I would make it 

(death 
For any male thing but to peep at us." 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she 
(laugh'd ; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her,she: 
E ut AValte r hail'd a score of names upon her, 
And ,/petty Ogress," and ^ungrateful Puss," 
And swore he iong'd at college, only long'd. 
All else was well, for she-society. 
They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd 
At Avine, in clubs, of art, of politics; 
They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of 

(deans ; 
They rode; they betted; made a hundred 

(friends, 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 
But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
Tbelittlehearth-flowerLilia. Thus he spoke, 
Part banter, part affection. 

./True," she said, 
„We doubt not that. yes, you miss'd us 

(much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 
And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
And bites it for true hear t and not for harm. 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung.it. „Doubt my word again!" he 

(said. 
„Come, listen! here is proof that you were 

(miss'd: 
"We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read; 
And there we took one tutor as to read : 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and 

(square 
Were out of season : never man, I think, 
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: 
For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, 
And our long walks were stript as bare as 

(brooms, 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
In wassail; often, like as many girls — 
Sick for the hollies and the yews of liome — 
As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
And whaCs ray thowjht and lohen and where 

(and hov)^ 
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 
As hcj-e at Christmas." 

She I'emember'd that : 



A pleasant game, she thought she liked it 

(more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did men tell 

(men, 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A lialf-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : 
And Walter nodded at me ; „Re began. 
The rest would follow, each in turn; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what 

(kind? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 
Time by the fire in winter." 

„Killliimnow, 
The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too," 
Said Lilia; ,/ Why not now," the maiden Aunt. 
„ Why not a summer's as a w^inter's tale? 
A tale for summer as befits the time, 
And something it should be to suit the place 
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath, 
Grave, solemn!" 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
To something so mock-sol emn,that I laugh'd 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 
An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
Hid in the ruins, till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had toucli'd her face 
With colour) turn'd to me with ,, As you wil I; 
Heroic if you will, or what you will, 
Or be yourself your hero if you will." 

„Take Lilia, then, for heroine" clamour'dhe. 
„ And make her some great Princess, six feet 

(liigb, 
Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you 
The Prince to win her!" 

„Then follow me, the Prince,' 
I answer'd, „each be hero in his turn ! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. - 
Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
But something made to suit with Time and 

(place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And,yonder,shrieksandstrange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph liad burnt 

(them all — 
1\\\^were a medley! we shoul d have him back 
Who told the „ Winter's tale" to do it for us. 
No matter : we will say whatever comes. 
And l€t the ladies sin.g*us., if they will* 



THE PRIKCFSS; A MEDIET.. 



147 



From time to time, some ballad or a song 
To srive us breathing-space.'" 

So I began, 
And the rest followed : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
And here I give the story and the songs. 

I. 
A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of vellow ringlets, like a girl, 
For on ray cradle'shone the Northern star. 
There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire 

(burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should 

(know 
The shadow from the substance,and that one 
Should come to fis:ht with shadows and to 

(fall. 
For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
And,truly,waking dreams were,more or.less, 
An old and strange aifection of the house. 
Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven 

(knows what: 
On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 
And while I walk'dandtalk'dasheretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head 

(cane, 
And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd ,/Cata- 

(lepsy." 
My motherpitying made a thousand prayers; 
Mv mother was as mild as any saint, 
Half-canonized by all that look'd on her. 
So gracious was her tact and tenderness : 
But my good father thought a king a king ; 
He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 
To lash offence, and with long arms and 

(hands 
Eeach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the 

(mas? 
For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, 
While life was yet in bud and blade,betroth'd 
Te one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs other beauty from theSouth, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance; 



And still I wore her picture by my heart, 
And one dark tress;and all aroundthem both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about 

(their queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should 

(wed. 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought 

(back 
A present, a great labour of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king; betook the gifts; 
He said there was a compact; that was true : 
But then she had a will : was he to blame ': 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Amongher women ; certain, would not wed. 

That morning in the presence room I stood 
With Cyi'il an d with Florian,my two friends: 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father'^s fault) but given to starts and 

(bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart. 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 
Now, while they spake,I saw my father's face 
Grow lony: and troubled like a rising moon. 
Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet. 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and 

(rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand 

(men, 
Andibringherin a whirlwind: then he chew\l 
The'thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd 

(his spleen. 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. „My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some' gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king, 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable: 
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whate''er my grief to find her less than fame. 
May rue the bargain made." And Florian 

(said : 
„I have a sister at the foreign court. 
Who moves about the Princess, she, you 

(know, 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence: 
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 
The lady of three castles in that laud : 
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.' 



148 



IIJl' PFIKCFSS: J M.EDIF1\ 



And Cyril whisper*d r ,;Take me you with 

(you'too.''- 
Then laughing ,;-vvhat, if tliese weird sei- 

(zures come 
Upon you in those lands, and no one near 
To poiut you out the shadow from the truth! 
Take me • I'll serve you better in a strait -, 
I grate on rusty hinges here." but -/^o!'' 
Roar'd the rough king, ,/you shall not ; we 

(ourself 
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 
In iron gauntlets -. break the council up.'' 

But when the council broke,! rose and past 
Thro' tlie wild woods that hung about the 

(town ; 
Pound a still place, and pluck'd her likeness 

(out; 

Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying 

(bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees -. 
What were those fancies r wherefore break 

(her troth ? 
Proud look'd the lips ; but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the 

(shrieks 
Of the wild woods together; and a Voice 
Went with it „Follow, follow, thou shalt 

(win." 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. 
Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread 
To hear my father's clamour at our backs 
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 
With Ho! from some bay-window shake the 

(night ; 
But all was quiet: from the bastion'd walls 
And flying reach'd the frontier: then we 

(crost 
To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange, 
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, 
We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers. 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name wasGama; crack'd and small 

(his voice, 
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling 

(wind 
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines ; 
A little dry old man, without a star, 
Not like a king : tliree dayshe feasted us. 
And on the fourtli 1 spake of why we came, 



And my betrothed. ^yYou do ns^ Prinee,^ he 

(said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 
,,A11 hononr. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives faii'd. 
I would you bad her, Prince, Avith all my 

(heart,* 
With my full heart : but there were widows 

(here, 
Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 
They fed her theories, in sind out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
The woman were an equal to the man. 
Theyharp'd on this; with this our banquets 

(rang: 
Our dances broke and buzz'din knots of talk; 
Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 
To hear them: knowledge, so rav daughter 

(held, 
Was all in all: they had but been,she thought, 
As children: they must lose thechild,assurae 
The woman : then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 
Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 
But all she is and does is awful ; odes 
About this losing of the child; and rhymes 
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 
Beyond all reason : these the women sang; 
And they that know such things — sought 

(but peace ; 
Iso critic I — would call them masterpieces: 
They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon 
A certain summer-palace whicli'l have 
Hard by your father's frontier : I said no, 
Yet being an easy man, gave it: and there, 
All wild to found an L'niversity 
For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 
We know not, — only this: they see no men, 
Tsot ev'n her brother Arac, nor'the twins 
Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon 

(her 
As on a kind of paragon ; and I 
(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to 

(breed 
Dispute betwixt myself andmine : but since 
(And I confess with right) you think me 

(bound 
In some sort, I can give you letters to her: 
And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your 

(chance 
Almost at naked nothing.^' 

Thus the king; 
And I tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 



TJli: rRINtFSS ; A BIEDIE3\ 



U% 



\\Xh garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
i )ui formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
ijnt chafing me on fire to find my bride) 
■ Vent forth again with both my friends. We 

(rode 
.lany a long league back to theNorth . At last 
''rom hills, that look'd across a land of hope, 
.Ve dropt with evening on a rustic town 
iet in a gleaming river's cresent-curve, 
^lose at the boundary of the liberties ; 
There, enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 
Co council, plied him with his richest wines, 
Ind show'dthe late- writ letters of the king. 

i He with a long low sibilation, stared 
is blank as Death in marble; then exclaim'd 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go : but as his brain 
Began to mellow. „If the king,'' he said, 
, Had ^iven us letters,washebound^o speak? 
The king would bear him out;" and at the 

(last — 
The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
„Xo doubt that we might make it worth his 

(while. 
She once had past that way ; he heard her 

(speak ; 
She scared him, life ! he never saw the like : 
She look'd as grand as doomsday and as 

(grave ; 
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there ; 
He always made a point to post wath mares ; 
His daughter and his housemaid were the 

(boys: 
The land, he understood, for miles about 
Was till'd by women; all the swine were 

(sows, 
And all the dogs" — 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flashed thro' me which I clothed 

(in act, 
Remembering how wethreepresented Maid 
Or^^ymph, or Goddess at high tide of feast. 
In masque or pageant at my father's court. 
We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 
He brought it, and himself; a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 
To guerdon silence.mountedourgoodsteeds, 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We follow'd up the river as we rode. 
And rode till midnight when the college 
' (lights 



Began to glitter firefly-like in copss 
And linden alley ; then we past an arch. 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark against the 

(stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front. 
But deep in shadow : further on we gain'd 
K. little street half garden and half house ; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for 

(noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers 

(falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering 

(down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, 
By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven 

*(and Earth 
With constellation and with continent. 
Above an entry : riding in, we call'd ; 
A pump-arm'dOstlere?s and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us 

(down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 
In laurel: her we ask'd of that and this, 
And who were tutors. //Lady Blanche" she 

(said, 
„xind Lady Psyche." „Which was prettiest, 
Best-natured?" „Lady Psyche." ,/Hers are 

(we," 
One voice, we cried; and I sat down and 

(wrote. 
In sucli a hand as when a field of com 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East ; 

„Three ladies of the IS'orthern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your 

(own. 
As Lady Psyche's pupils." 

This I seal'd : 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll. 
And o'er his head Uranian Yenus hung. 
And raised the blinding bandage from his 

(eyes : 
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn, 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering night,and watch 
A fall sea glazed with muffled moonlight, 

(swell 



3 so 



TB^E TnmCESSi A MEDLEY. 



-I 



On some dark shore just seen t)iat it was 
(rich. 

As thro' the land at eve we went, 
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and J, 
we fell out 1 know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 
That all the more endears, 
When yre fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears ! 
For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. 



At break of day the College Portress came: 
She brought us Academic silks, in hue 
The lilac, with a silken hood to each. 
And zoned with gold, and now when these 

(were on, 
And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 
She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 
The Princess Ida waited : out we paced, 
I first, and following thro' the porch that 

(sang 
All round with laurel, issued in a court 
Compact with lucid marbles, boss'd with 

(lengths 
Of classsic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of 

(flowers. 
ThcMuses and the G races, group'd in threes, 
Enring'd a ])illowing fountain in the midst; 
And here and there on lattice edges lay 
Or book or lute; but hastily we past, 
And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her 

(throne. 
All beauty compass'din a female form. 
The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, 
Than our man's earth, such eyes were in her 

(liead, 
And so much grace and power, breathing 

(down 
From over her arch'd brows.with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet.She rose her height, and said: 



wWegive you welcoine; not without re- 

(dound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 
xind that full voice which circles round the 

(grave. 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What ! are the ladies of your land so tall r " 
/,We of the court" said Cyril. „From the 

(court" 
She answer'd, „then ye know the Prince?" 

(and he : 
,/The climax of his age! as tho' there were 
One rose in all the world, yourHighnessthat,^ 
He worships your ideal : " she replied : 
„ We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds 

(would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 
Your language proves you still the child. In- 

(deed. 

We dream not of him: when we set our hand 
To this great work,we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks, which make us toys of men, that 

(so, 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 
You may with those self-istvled our lords 

(ally * 
Y'our fortuness, justlier balanced,scale with 

(scale." 

At those high words, we conscious of our- 

(selves. 
Perused the matting; then an ofllcer 
Rose up, and read the statutes,sucli as these: ' 
Not for three years to correspond with home; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
Not for three years to speak with any men ; 
And many more, which hastily subscribed, 
We enter'd on the boards : and ,/Now" she 

(cried 
„ Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, 

(our hall ! 
Our statues! — not of those that men desire, 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East, but she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war, 
The Pvhodope, that built the pyramid, 



THE PEINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 



151 



rielia, Cornelia, with the Pal my re ue 
riiat fought Aurelian, and IheRoman brows 
3f Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
I!onvention, since to look on noble forms 
Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
That which is higher. lift your natures up: 
Bnibrace our aims : work out your freedom. 
I (Girls, 

I knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd: 
'Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
•Che sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
iind slander, die. Better not be at all 
ji'han not be noble. Leave us : you may go ; 
^ro-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
The fresh arrivals of the week before; 
jPor they press in from all the provinces, 
ind fill the hive." 

I She spoke, and bowing waved 

Dismissal: back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning 
I (doves 

That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
i patient range of pupils; she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon- 

(eyed, 
And' on the hither side, or so she look'd 
If twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
-[n shinning draperies, headed like a star, 
;Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
'Aglaia slept. We sat: the Lady glanced: 
[Then Ilorian, but nolivelierthanthedame. 
That whisper'd „Asses* ears" among the 

(sedge, 
,My sister." „Comely too by all that's fair" 
Said Cyril. „0 hush, hush!" and she began. 

'" ,/This world was once a fl uid haze of light 
rill toward the centre set the starry tides. 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The x)lanets: then the monster, then the 

(man ; 
Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his 

(mate ; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye-view, of all the ungracious 

(past ; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
■ Appraised the I<ycian custom,, spoke o-f those 



That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo, 
Ean down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each. 
How far from just; till warming with her 

(theme 
She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 
And little-footed China,toucli'd onMahomet 
"With much contempt, and came to chivalry -. 
When some respect,however slight, was paid 
To woman, superstition all awry : 
However then commenced the dawn : abeam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
Of promise; fruit would follow.Deep,indeed, 
Their debt of thanks to her who first had 

(dared 
To leap therotten pales of prejudice, 
Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
ISone lordlier than themselves but that 

(which made 
Woman and man.She had founded,thev must 

(build. - 
Here might they learn whatever men were 

(taught : 
Let them not fear:some said their heads were 

(less : 
Some men's were small ; not they the letist 

(of men ; 
For often fineness compensated size: 
Besides the brain was like the hand,and grew 
With using, thence the man's, if more, Avas 

(more: 
He took advantage of his strength to be 
First in the field: some ages had been lost ; 
But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 
Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 
Were fewer, scatter'd stars.yet since in truth 
The highest is the measure of the man. 
And not the Kaft'ir, Hottentot, Malay, 
jS'or those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 
But Homer, Plato, Yerulam ; even so 
With woman: and in arts of government 
Elizabeth and others : arts of war 
The peasant Joan and others: arts of grace 
Sappho and others vied with any man : 
And,lasr not least,she who had left her place, 
And bow'd her state to them,that they might 

(grow 
To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 
In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 
Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future: „every where 
Two 4i€ad-s in -council,, two l>esid€ the hearth. 



152 



THE PRINCESS; d MEDLEY . 



Two ill tlie tangled business of tlie world, 

Two in the liberal offices of life, 

Two plummets dropt for one to sound the 

(abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind: 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more -. 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous 

(Earth ^ 
Should bear a double growth of those rare 

(souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of 

(the world/' 

She ended here, and beckon'd us : the rest 
Parted: and,glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Eegan to address us, and was moving on 
In gratulation, till as when a boat 
Tacks, and the slacken'd sailflaps, all her 

(voice 
Paltering and fluttering in her throat, she 

(cried 
„My brother!" „Well,my sister." „Q" she said 
„"What do yeu here? and in this dress ? and 

(these ? 
Why who are these? a wolf within the fold! 
A pack of wolves! theLord be gracious to me! 
A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin us all!" 
„xS'o plot, uoplot,"heanswer'd. „Wretclied 

(boy. 
How saw you not the inscription on the gate. 
Let is'O man en'ter in on pain oe death?" 
,, And if I had" he answer'd „who could think 
The softer Adams of your Academe, 
sister. Sirens tho' they be, Avere such 
As chanted on theblanching bones of men?" 
,/But you will find it otherwise" she said, 
,,Youjest:illjesting with edge-tools' my vow 
Einds me to speak, and that iron will. 
That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 
The Princess." „ Well then, Psyche, take my 

(life, 
And nail me like a weasel on a grange 
Por warning: bury me beside the gate, 
And cut this epitaph above my bones ; 
Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 
Jll for the coi'timongood ofwoiiuaiJcind." 
,,Let me die too" said Cyril „having seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 
„Albeit so mask'd. Madam, 1 love the truth; 
Receive it: and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, aftianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida : here, for here she was, 
And thus (what other way was left.) I caiue.^' 



„0 Sir, Prince, I have no country; none ; 
If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
A ffiauced,Sir? love- whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
AVho am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent: but prepare : I speak; it falls." 
„Yet pause," I said: ,/for that inscription 

(th ere, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 
To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, 
If more and acted on, what follows ? war; 
Y'our ow'n work marr'd: for this your Aca- 

(deme, 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
AVith all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormkss summer." ,/Let the Princess 

(judge 

Of that" she said ^farewell Sir — and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go," 

„ Are you that Lady Psyche" I rejoin'd, 
,/The fifth in line from that old Plorian, 
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron w^ith his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 
And all else fled: we point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold. 
But branches current yet in kindred veins." 
,.,Are you that Psyche" ITorian added „she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills, 
Plung ball, flew kite,and raced the purple fly, I 
And snared the squirrel of the glen ? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing 

(brow. 
To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming 

(draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams? are 

(you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you 

(now ?" 
„You arethatPsyche," Cyril said, „for whom 
I would be that for ever which I seem, 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 
And glean your scatter'd sapience" 

Then once more, 
,,Are you that Lady Psyche" I began, 
„That on her bridal morn before she past 
Prom all her old companions, whe^i the king 



TME PRTKCESS ; A medlet. 



15S 



""tiss'd her pale cheeky declared that ancient 

(ties 
,Voald still be dear beyond the southern 

(hills; 
f That were there any of our people there 
li n want or peril, there was one to hear 
^nd help them : look ! for such are these and 

(I." 
,A.re you that Psyche" Florian ask'd ,/to 

(whom, 
w gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Ilame flying while you sat lieside the well ? 
Che creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
Vnd sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the 

(blood 
"^vYas sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet 
: (you wept. 

3 by the bright head of my little niece, 
i i'ou are that PsYche,and what are you now?" 
;Iou are that Psyche'- Cyril said again, 
/The mother of the sweetest little maid. 
That ever crow'd for kisses." 

„Out upon it!" 
^he answer'd „peace ! and why should I not 

(play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind ? 
Sim you call great: he for the common weal, 

■ riie fading politics of mortal Rome, 

', Vs I might slay this child, if good need were, 
>lew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 
' The secular emancipation turns 

■ 3f half this world, be swerved from right to 
^ (save 

:■ ^ prince, a brother? a little will I yield. 
' Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
: 3 hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 

Vly conscience will not count mefleckless ; 
i:t (yet — 

ITearmy conditions: promise (otherwise 

i'ou perish) as you came, to slip away 
. To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said. 

These women were too barbarous, would 
(not learn; 

rhey fled, who might have shamed us: 
(promise, all." 

What could we else, we promised each; 

(and she. 
Like some wild creature newly-caged, com- 

(menced 
i to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Morian ; holding out her lily arms 



Took both his hands, and smiling faintly 

(said : 
„I knew you at the first : tho* you have 

(grown 
You scarce have alter'd: I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. I give thee to death 
My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well?" 

With that she kiss'd 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the 

(hearth, 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews 
Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
„I brought a message here from Lady 

(Blanche." 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she 

(stood, 
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown. 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's colour) with her lips apart, 
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, 
As bottom agates seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche. „Ah — Melissa — you! 
You heard us?" and Melissa, „0 pardon me ! 
I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
Nor thinki bear that heart withinmybrea.st, 
To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 
„1 trust you" said the other „for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and 

(vine : 
But yet your mother's jealous tempera- 

(ment — 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or 

(prove 
The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear, 
This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 
My honour, these their lives." Ah, fear me 

(not" 
Keplied Melissa ,,no — I would not tell. 
No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness. 
No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard 

(things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 



154 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEF. 



„Be it soothe other ,;that we still may lead 
The new light up, and culminate in peace, ' 
I'or Solomon may come to Sheba yet.'' 
Said Cyril „Madam, he the wisest man 
Peasted the woman wisest then, in halls ; 
Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you 
(Tho' madam yon should answer, we would 

(ask) 
Less welcome find among us, if you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives to you, 
Myself for| something more." He said not 

(what, 
But „Thanks," she answer'd ,/go : we have 

(been too long 
Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that affect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
Your promise: all, I trust, may yet be well.' 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child , 
And held her round the knees against his 

(waist, 
And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter, 
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling and 

(the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and 

(laugh'd ; 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we stroll'd 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Bench'd crescent wise. In each we sat, we 

(heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 
With flawless demonstration : foUow'dthen 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out 
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle for ever: then we dipt in all 
That treats of Avhatsoever is, the state, 
The total chronicles of man, the mind. 
The moral3,somethingoftheframe,therock, 
The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the 

(flower. 
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, 
And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
Till like three horsesthat have broken fence, 
And glutted all night long l)reast-deep in 

corn. 
We issued gorged with knowledge and I 

(spoke : 
«Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 



„They hunt old trails'' said Cyril //very well^i 
But when did woman ever yet invent?" 
^Ungracious [*' answer'd Florian, ,,haveyou 

(learnt 
No more from Psyche's lecture, you that 

(talk'd 
The trash that made me sick, and almost 

sad?" 
„0 trash" he said, ,/but with a kernel in it. 
Should I not call her wise, who made me i 

(wise? 

And learnt?! learnt more from her in a flash. 
Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 
xind everyMuse tumbled a science in. 
A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts. 
Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but 
With me. Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, 
The Head of all the golden-shafted ffrm, 
The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too • 
He cleft me thro' the stomacher ; and now 
What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 
The substance or the shadow? will it hold : 
I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 
No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 
Flatter myself that always everywhere 
I know the substance when I see it. Well, 
Are castles shadows? Three of Them? Is she 
The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not. 
Shall those three castles patch my tatter'c 

(coat? 
For dear arethose three castlesto my wants 
And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 
And two dear things are one of doubk 

(worth. 
And much I might have said, but that m^ 

(zone 

Unmann'd me : then the Doctors ! to heir 
The Doctors! to watch the thirsty plant; . 
Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, ' 
To break my chain, to shake my mane: bu^ 

(thou, 
Modulate me. Soul of mincing mimicry ! 
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, nr 

(throat ; 
Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
Star sisters answering under crescen 

(brows ; 
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, an( 

(loose 
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek. 
Where they like swallows coming out n 

(time 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



Iijrill wonder why they came: but hark the bell 
i'or dinner, let us go!" 

And in we stream'd 
Lmong the columns, pacing staid and still 
;5y twos and threes, till alffrom end to end 
\' ith beauties every shade of brown and fair, 
u colours gayer than the morning mist, 
'he long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers, 
low might a man not wander from his wits 
'ierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept 

(mine own 

ntent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 
'he second-sight of some Astrseanage, 
'at compass'd with professors: they, the 

(while, 
♦i)iscuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro : 
'I clamour thicken'd, mixt with inmost 

(terms 
)f art and science: Lady Blanche alone 
)f faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 
Vith all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
ihot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
n act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
i'oncluded,and we sought the gardens:there 
:)ne walk'd reciting by herself, and one 
n this hand held a volume as to read, 
A.nd smootlied a petted peacock down with 

(that : 
>ome to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 
)r under arches of the marble bridge 
iuug, shadow'd from the heat : some hid 

(and sought 
n the orange thickets: others tost a ball 
Lbove the fountain-jets, and back again 
.Vith laughter ; others lay about the lawns, 
)f the older sort, and murmur 'd that their 
,(May 

■Vas passing: what was learning unto them? 
li'hey wish'd to marry, they could rule a 

(house; 
vien hated learned women; but we three 
:^at muitiedlike theTates; and often came 
Alelissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
Hiat harni'd not : then day droopt ; the 

(chapel bells 
"all'd us : we left the walks, we mixt with 

(those 
?ix hundred maidens clad in purest white, 
Before two streams of light from wall to 
., (wall, 
vYhile the great organ almost burst his 

("pipes, 



Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the 

(COlU't 

A long melodious thunder the sound 
Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, 
The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
A blessing oh her labours for the world. 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again t o me ; 
While my tittle one, wiiile my pretty one, 
(sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 
Father will come to thee soon ; 

Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 
Father will come to thee soon ; 

Father will come to his babe in the nest, 

Silver sails all out of the west 
Under the silver moon : 

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, 
(sleep. 



Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furro^ving all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the courtsthat lay three parts 
In shadow, but the Muses' heads were 

(touch'd 
Above the darkness from their native East. 

There while we stood beside the fount, 

(and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch dancing bubble, ap- 

(proach'd 
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep 
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes. 
The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
And „Fly" she cried, „0 fly, while yet you 

(may! 
My mother knows," and when I ask'd her 

(,,how" 
^My fault" she wept -/my fault! and yet not 

(mine; 
Yet mine in part. hear me, pardon me. 
My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 
To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
She says the Princess should have been the 

(Head, 
Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 



156 



THE PRINCESS; A JIEDLEF. 



And so it was agreed when first they came ; 
Bat Lady Psyche was the rio^lit hand now, 
And she the left, or not, or seldom used; 
Hers more than half the students, all the 

(love. 
And so last night she fell to canvass you : 
Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 
„Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 
Girls 'f — more like men I" and at these 

(words the snake, 
My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast ; 
And oil, Sirs, could 1 help it, but my cheek 
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
To tix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 
,,0 marvellously modest maiden, you! 
Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been 

(men 
You need not set your thoughts in rubric 

(thus 
lor wholesalemoment . "Pardon,! am shamed 
That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
What looks so little graceful: ,/ men" (for still 
My mother went revolving on the Avord) 
.,And so they are, — very like men indeed — 
And with that woman closeted for hours !" 
Then came these dreadful words out one by 

(one, 
,,lVhy — these — are — men:'' I shudder'd: 

(„and you know it.'' 
,;0 ask me nothing," I said: ,/And she knows 

(too, 
And she conceals it." So my mother clutch'd 
The truth at once,but with no word from me; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess : Lady Psyche will be crush'd; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly: 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 

„\Vhat pardon,s weet Melissa, for a blush?" 
Said Cyril, „Pale one, blush again: than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet les us breathe for one hour more in 

(Heaven" 
He added, ,/lest some classic Angel speak 
In scorn of us, 'they mounted, Ganymedes, 
To tumble Vulcans", on tlie second morn.' 
But I will melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough :" and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and 

(thought 
He scarce would prosper. ,,Tell us," Florian 

(ask'd, 
;,How grew this feud betwixt the right ;ind 

(left." 



.,0 long ago," she said, „betwixt these twQ^ , 
Division smoulders hidden ; 'tis my mother. 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice: much I bear with her: y 
I never knew my father, but she says 
(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
And still she rail'd against the stateof things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
And from the Queen's decease she brought 

(her up. 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated; . 
Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, 
And angled with them for lier pupil's love: 
She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what, 
But I most go : I dare not tarry" and light. 
As tlies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian gazing after her. 
„An open-hearted maiden true and pure. 
If I could love,why this were she : how pretty 
Her blushing was^andhowsheblush'dagain, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish : 
]S^ot like your Princess cramm'd with erring 

(pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in 

(tow." 

„Tlie crane, I said, ,/ may chatter of the 

(crane. 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
My princess, my princess! true she ers. 
But in her own grand way : being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of 

(men, 
She sees herself in every woman else. 
And so she wears her error like a crown 
To blind the truth and me : for her,andhcr^ 
Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
The nectar; but — ah she — whene'er she 

(moves 
The Samian Here rises and she speaks 
A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun 

So saying from the court we paced, and 

(gain'd 
The terrace ranged along theXorthern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the 

(gale 
That blown about the foliage underneath. 
And sated with the innumerable rose, 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY, 



157 



Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning ,0 hard task," he cried; 
„No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 
Better to clear prime forests, heave and 

(thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down. 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewo- 

(man. 
I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd; found her 

(there 
At point to move, and setted in her eyes 
The green malio-nant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd, 
As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment: she demanded who we were, 
And why we came? I fabled nothing fair, 
But, your example pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, 
She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray, 
I urged the fierce inscription on the gate. 
And our three lives. True — we had limed 

(ourselves 
With open eyes, and we must take the 

(chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, well might 

(harm 
The woman's cause. ']S'ot more than now,' 

(she said, 
,So paddled as it is with favouritism.' 
I tried the mother's heart. Shame might be- 

(fall 
Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 
1 Her answer was 'Leave me to deal with that .' 
; I spoke of war to come and many deaths, 
I And she replied, her duty was to speak, 
I And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
I grew discouraged. Sir; but since I knew 
liS'O rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years, 
1 recommenced; 'Decide not ere you pause. 
I find you here but in the second place, 
Some say the third — the authentic fouu- 

(dress you. 
I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 
AVink at our advent, help my prince to gain 
His rightful bride, and here I promise you 
Some palace in our land, where you shall 

(reign 
The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 
And your great name flow on with broaden- 

(ing time 
For ever.* Well, she balanced this a little, 



And told me she would answer us to-day, 
Meantime be mute : thus much, nor more 

(I gained." 

He ceasing, came a message from the 

(Head. 
„That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North, 
Would we go with her? we should find the 

(land 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder:" then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale, 

Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She 

(stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head, 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roU'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure 

(came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house : 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
Her gay-f urr'd cats a painted fantasy, 
Her college and her maidens, empty masks 
And I myself the shadow of a dream, 
Tor all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and 

(with awe ; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 
The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 

I rode !)eside her and to me she said : 
,,0 friend, we trust that you esteem'dus not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake" — ,/No - nottoher," 
I answer'd, ,/but to one of whom we spake 
lour Highness might have seem'd the thing 

(you say." 
,,Again?" she cried -/are you ambassadresses 
From him to me ? we give you,being strange, 
A license : speak, and let the topic die." 

I stammer'd that I knew him — could 

(have wish'd — 
„Our king expects — was there no pre- 

(contract? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 



158 THE PRINCESS 

The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to 

(death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair." 

,,Poor boy" she said „can he not read — 

(no books ? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? nor deals 

(in that 
"Which men delight in, martial exercise? 
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; 
As girls were once, as we ourself have been : 
\\e had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with 

(them : 
T\'e touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it. 
Being other — since we learnt our meaning 

(here, 
To lift the woman's fall'n divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paused,and addedwith a haughtier smile 
„And as to precontracts, we move,my friend, 
At no man's beck,but know ourself and thee, 
b Vashty, noble Vashty ! Summon'd out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath t he palms . " 

„Alas your Highness breathes full East," 

(I said, 
„0n that which leans to you. I know the 

(Prince, 
I prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 
You grant me licence ; might I use it ? think ; 
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail; 
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing : might I dread that 

(you, 
With only Eame for spouse and your great 

(deeds 
lor issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts lier 

(due, 
Love, children, happiness ? " 

And she exclaim'd, 
,,Peace, you young savage of the Northern 

(wild! 
What ! tho' your Prince's love were like 

(a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 



A MEDLEY. 
You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to _^ 

[tUUS: ,^^, 

Yet will we say for children,would they grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere 1 we like them 

(well : 
But children die; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their 

For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from 

(our hearts. 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 

— children — there is nothing upon earth 
More miserable than she that has a son 
And sees him err: nor would we work lor ^ 

(fame; , , , 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause 

(of Great, - ... 

Who learns the one pou sto whence after- 
May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
Tor fear our solid aim be dissipated 
By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had 

(been, 
In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 
Of giants living, each, a thousand years, 
That we might see our own work out, and 

(watch , . J. i. ,/ 

The sandy footprint harden mto stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
Ifthatstrange Poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations migbt at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts: 

.,Xo doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; 
We are used to that : for women, up till this 
'^ Cramp' I under worse than South-sea-isle 
(taboo, ^ ., . 

Dwarfs of the gynaeceum, fail so tar 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof— 
Oh if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 
Ofimmolation. any face of death, 
We were as prompt to spring against the 

(pikes. 
Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it. 
To compass our dear sisters's liberties." 

1 She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; 
1 And up we came to where the river sloped 



To plunge in cataract, shattering on black 

(blocks 
A breadth of thunder. 0*er it shook the 

(woods, 
And danced the colour, and, belo w,stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and 

(roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
^xis these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be." ,,Daue we dream of that " I 

(ask'd, 
„Which wrought us, as the workman and 

(his work, 
That practice betters?" „How," she cried, 

('/you love 
The metaphysics! read and earn our prize 
^ A golden broach : beneath an emerald plane 
bits Diotima, teaching him that died 
01 hemlock; our device; wrought to the life • 
: She rapt upon her subject, he on her- 
; lor there are schools for all." ,,Aud vet" I 
( (said ^ 

i ^Methinks I have not found among them all 
I One anatomic." „Xay, we thought of that " 
■ .bhe answer d, „ but it pleased us not: in truth 
W e shudder but to dream our maids should 
(ape 

Those monstrous males that carve the li vino- 
(hound, *" 

And cram him with the fragments of the 

(grave, 
Or in the dark dissolving human heart 
And holy secrets of this microcosm, ' 
Babbling a shameless hand with shameful 

(jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know ' 

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matte- 

(hangs : 
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casuaUy 
Nor willing men should come amout' us 

(learnt, ° ' 

^or many weary moons before we came 
Ihiscratt of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
\ ould tend upon you.To your question now. 
Which touches on the workman and his 

(work. 

.et there be light and there was light: 'tis so- 
: or was, and is, and will be, are but is • 
Ind all creation is one act at once 
Che birth of light: but we that are not all 

^ a^mt ' ""^"^ '^^ ^""^ P''''*'' ^""^ ^^^'' '^^^^ 
lid Mje, perforce, from thought to thouo-ht 
(and make - ' 



THE FRINCESS; A MEDLEi\ 



15 



One act a phantom of succession; thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow 

(Time; ' 

But in the shadow will we work, and n^ould 
The woman to the fuller day." 
„,.,, 1 . „ , She spake 

\\ ith kindled eyes: we rode a league bevond 
And,o-er a bridge of pinewood crossingfcame 
On flowery levels underneath the cra^^ 
i nil ot all beauty. ,,0 how sweet" I said 
(1 or i was half-oblivious of my mask) 
,/To linger here with one that loved us " 

O/iea" 
She answer'd „or with fair philosophies 
iiiathltthe fancy; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elvsian lawns 
A\ here paced the Demigods of old, and saw 
The soft white vapour streak the crowned 

(towers 
Built to theSun:" theii,turning to her maids 
vPitch our pavilion here upon the sward • ' 
Lay out the viands." At the word,thevraised 
A tent ol satm, elaboratelv wrought* 
A\ ith fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood 
Lngirt with many a florid maiden-cheek ' 
The woman-conqueror; woman-conquer'd 

(there ^ 

The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hvnins, 
And all the men mourn'd at his side • but we 
?x^l?^*^ *^ ^^^"^^'^ *^^^' climbing, Cyril kept 
U Ith Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
\\ ith mine affianced. Many a little hand 
Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the 

(rocks. 
Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 
In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we 
I (wound 
About the cliffs, the copses, out and in. 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stonv 
(names ^ 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and 

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
Grew broader toward his death and fell 
(and all ' 

The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 

The splendour tails on castle walls 
Aud snowy summits old in storv: 
The long light shakes across the lakes. 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow,set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying:, dyin?, 
(dying. -' -^ =" 



160 



TEE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY, 



hark, hear ! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going 1 
sweet and far from cliflP and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing I 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, 
(dying. 
love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river : 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
Ind grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, busle,blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, 
(dying. 



„There sinks the nebulous star we call 

(the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound" 
Said Ida*; ,,letusdown and rest;" and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 
By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where 

(below , ^ , 

Ko bigger than a »low-worm shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on 

Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand, 
And blissful palpitations in the blood, 
Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and entered in, 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we 

(sank 
Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand,amber wine, and gold. 

Then she ,/Let some one sing to us : light- 

(lier move 
The minutes fledged with music;'' and a 

(maid, 
Of those beside her,smote her harp,and sang. 

„Tears, idle tears, I know not what they 

(mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divme despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 
,,Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail. 
That brings our friends up from the under- 

(world, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 



That sinks with all we love below the verge; * 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more, j 
,; Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer 1 
(dawns l 

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dving ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows aglimmerino- 

(square; 
So sad, sostrange, the days that are no more. 

„Dear as remember'd kisses after deatli, j 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd J 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, I 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret : 1 
Death in Life, the days that are no more." y 
She ended with such passion that the tear, ^ 
She sans: of shook and fell, an erring pearLi 
Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain 
Answer'dthePrincess„If indeed therehaunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatnl to men, , 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with 

(wool 
And so'pace by: but thine are fancies hatchM 
In silken-folded idleness; nor is it 
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, ; 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, ] 
"While down the streams that float us each 

(and all 
To the issue,goes,like glittering bergs of ice, 
Throne after throne, and molten on the 

(waste 
Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their 

(time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and 

(rights, 
:N^or would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Pound golden: let the past be past; let be 
Their cancell'd Babels : tho' the rough kex 

(break 
Thestarr'dmosaic,andthebeard-blowngoa+ 
Hane on the shaft, and the wild flgtree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while we 

(hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better,and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 
Above the unrisen morrow;" then to me; 
„Know you no song of your own land," sh: 

(said * 
„^^ot such as moans about the retrospect, 
But deals with the other distance and th 

(hues 
Of promise ; not a death'shead at the wine. 
Then I remember'd one myself had madi 



THE PRINCESS; A^MEDLET. 



161 



What time I watch'd the swallow winging 

(south 
From mine own land, part made long since, 

(and part 
iS ow while I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 

„0 SwalloWjSwallow, flying,flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I "tell to thee. 

,/0 tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest 

(each, 
Thathright and fierce and fickle istheSouth, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 

„0 Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, 

(and light 
"^"^ponher lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
^ i cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

,/0 were I thou that she might take me in, 
x\nd lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

„Why lingereth she to clothe her heart 

(with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are 

(green ? 

;,0 tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is 

(flown : 
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

,.,0 tell her, brief is life but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

,/0 Swallow,flying fromthe golden w^oods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make 

(her mine 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each. 
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, 
Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with 

(alien lips. 
And knew not what they meant : for still my 

(voice 
Rang false: but smiling ,/Not for thee," she 

(said, 
„0 Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, 

(maid, 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and 

(this 
A mere love-poem! for such, my friend, 



We hold them slight: they mind us of the 

(time 
"When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves 

(are men, 
That lute and llute fantastic tenderness, 
And dress the victim to the offering up, 
And paint the sates of Hell with Paradise, 
And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
Poor soul '. £ had a maid of honour ouce, 
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
A rogue of canzonets andsereaades. 
I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 
So they blaspheme the muse! But great is 

(song 
Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 
Yalkyrianhymns,orinto rhythm have dasli'd 
The passion of the prophetess : for song 
Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 
Of spirit than to junketing and love. 
Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and 

(this 
Mock-Hymen were laid up like winterbats, 
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 
Not vassals to be beat, nor petty babes 
To be dandled, no, but living wills, and 

(sphered 
Whole in ourselves and owed to none. 

(Enough ! 
But now to leaven play with profit, you, 
Know you no song, the true growth of your 

(soil. 
That gives the manners of your country- 

( women?" 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous 

(head with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then while 1 dragg'd my brains for such 

(a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd flask 

(had wrought, 
Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless, tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
I frowning ; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and 

(shook ; 
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows ; 
„Forbear" the Princess cried; „Forbear, 

(Sir" I; 
And heated thro' and thro' with vvratli 

(and love, 
I smote him on the l)reast; he started up; 
There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 

G 



162 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



Melissa clamour'd „riee the death ;^' ,/ To 

(horse" 
Said Ida: ,;home!to]iorse!''and fled, as flies 
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 
AVlien some one batters at the dovecote- 

(doors, 
Disorderly the women, iilone I stood 
Witli Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, 
In the pavilion : there like parting: hopes 
I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof, 
And every hoof a knell to my desires,' 
Claug'd on tiie bridge; and then another 

(shriek. 
„The Head, the Head, the Princess, the 

(Head!" 
For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, 

(and roll'd 
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to 

(gloom : 
There whirl'd her white robe like a blos- 

(som'd branch 
Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, 
]S^o more; but woman-vested as I was 
Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught 

(her ; chen 
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 
The weight of all the hopes of half the world 
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 
Was lialf-disrooted from his place and 

(stoop'd 
Tu drench his dark locksiu the gurgling wave 
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and 

(caught. 
And grasping down the l)oughs I gain'd the 

(shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly 

(group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward 

(drew 
My l)urthen from mine arms; they cried 

(,,9he lives:" 
They bore her back into the tent : but I, 
So much a kindofshame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Kor found my friends; but push'd alone on 

(foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian 

(craft 
Than beelikc instinct hiveward, found at 

(length 
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 



A weight of crablem,and betwixt were valves 
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the 
(gates. 

A little space was left between the horns, 
Thro' whichi clamber'd o'er attop withpain, 
Dropt on the sward,and up the linden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from 

(hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain 

(gloom, 
Disturb'd me witli the doubt ,/if this were 

(she" 
But it was Florian. ,/Hist Hist," he said, 
„They seek us: out so late is out of rules. 
Moreover 'seize the strangers is the cry. 
How came you here?" 1 told him: ,/I" said he, 
„Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 
To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, 

(return'd. 
Arriving all confused among the rest 
With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 
And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneatli 
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 
Girl after girl was call'd to trial : each 
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us : last of all, 
Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, question'd if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent; closer prest, denied it not: 
And then, demanded if her mother knew, 
Or Psyche, she aflirm'd not, or denied : 
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with 

(her. 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 
F'or Psyche, but she was not there; she call'd 
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; 
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to 

(face ; 
And I slipt out: but whither will you now ? 
And where Arc Psyche, Cyril? both are fled: 
Wliat, if together? that were not so well. 
Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

„And yet," I said, „you wrong him more 

(than I 
That struck him: this is proper to the clowu. 



THE PRINCESS s A MEBLEF 



163 



Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still 

(the clown, 
To harm the thing that trust him, and to 

(shame 
That which he says he loves: for Cyril, how- 

(e'er 
He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse and sinn'din grosser 

(lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he. 
He has a solid base of temperament: 
But as the waterlily starts and slides 
Upon tlie level in little puffs of wind 
Tho* anchor'd to the bottom, such is he." 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk 

(near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying. 

(,/T^ames:" .. 
He, standing still, was clutch'd; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot : 
Before me shower'd the rose in flakes; behind 
I heard the puff'd pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 
That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 
And falling on my face was caught and 

(known. 
They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall: above her droop 'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fife on a mast-head, 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long 

(black hair 
Damp from the river; and close behind her 

(stood 
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger 

(than men, 
Huge women blowzed with health , and 

(wind, and rain. 
And labour. Each was like a Druid rock ; 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with 



Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
An advent to the throne : and there beside, 
Half-naked as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 



Bow'd on her palms and folded up from 

(wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her 

(sobs, 
Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

,/It was not thus, Princess, in old days : 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: 
I led you then to. all the Castalies ; 
1 fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I loved you like, this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother : those were gracious 

(times. 
Then came your new friend : you began to 

(change — 
I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 
Till taken with her seeming openness 
Your turn'd your warmer currents all to her, 
To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, 
And partly that I hoped to win you back. 
And partly conscious of my own deserts, 
And partly that you were my civil head, 
And chiefly you were born for something 

(great. 
In which I might your fellow-worker be, 
When time should serve; and thus a noble 

(scheme 
Grew up from seed we two long since had 

(sown ; 
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, 
Up in one night and due to sudden sun : 
We took this place ; but even from the first 
You stood in our own light and darken'd 

(mine. 
What student came but that you planed her 

(path 
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all? 
But still her lists were swell'd and mine were 

(lean, 
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 
Then came these wolves : thei/knev^ her : thei/ 

(endured. 
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn. 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 
And me none told ; not less to an eye like 

(mine, 
A lidless watcher of the public weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, and my 

(foot 
Was to you : but I thought again" : I fear'd 



1£4 



THE PRINCESS; J MEDLEY. 



To meet a cold „\Ve thank you, wesball hear 

(of it 
From Lady Psyche: you Jiad goue to her, 
She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 
iS'o doubt,for slight delay,remain'd among us 
In our young nursery' still unknown, the 

(stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest 

(heat 
"Were all miscounted as malignant haste 
To push my rival out of place and power. 
But public use required she should be 

(known ; 
And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 
I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 
I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them 

(weU, 
Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
And yet this day(tho' you should hate me 

(for it) 
I came to tell you ; found that you had gone , 
llidd*n to the hills, she likewise: now, I 

(thought. 
That surely she will speak; if not, then I: 
Did she? These monsters blazon'd what 

f^they were. 
According to the coarseness of their kind, 
For thus T hear ; and known at last (my 

(work) 
And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 
1 grant in her some sense of shame, she flies; 
And 1 remain on whom to wreak your rage, 
. I, that have lent my life to buildup yours, 
I that have wasted here health, wealth, and 

(time, 
A)id talents, I — you know it — I will not 

(boast : 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no food can 

(tread." 

Slie ceased: the Princess answer'd coldly 

O/Good: 
Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) 
Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself." 

Thereat theLady stretch'd a vulture throat. 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
./Theplanwasmine. Ibuiltthenesf'shesaid 
;,To hatch the cuckoo. Rise'.'' and stoop'd 
(to updrag 



Melissa : she, half ou her mother propt, 
Half-drooping from her, turned her face, 

(and cast 
A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 
Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
A Tsiobean daughter, one arm out. 
Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while 
We gazed upon her came a little stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and 

(wing'd 
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
Delivering seal'd dispatches w^bichtheHead 
Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood 
Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 
Regarding, while she read, till over brow 
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful 

(bloom 
As of son:e flre against a stormy cloud, 
When the wildpeasant rights himself, the 

(rick 
I'lames,and his anger reddens in the heavens 
For anger most it seem'd, while now her 

(breast, 
Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 
Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 
In the dead hush the papers that she held 
Bustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 
Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam; 
The plaintive cry jarr'd onherire;shecrush'd 
The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 
She whirPd them on to me, as who should 

(say 
,/Bead" and I read — two letters — one her 

(sire's. 

,/Fair daughter, Avhen we sent the Prince 
(your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which 

(learnt. 
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night, 
You lying close upon his territory, 
Slipt round and in the dark invested you. 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son." 

The second was my father's running tims: 
vY'ou have our son: touch not a hair of his 

(head : 
Render him up unscathed: give him your 

(hand: 



THE PRINCESS; A MELLEY. 



165 



Cleave to your contract; tho' indeed weliear 
You hold the woman is the better man ; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their 

(Lords 
Thro' all the world, and wliicli might well 

(deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace 

(down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

„0 not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 
The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your preciact ; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be : hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your 

(wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell 

(me of you, 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon. 
Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd 

(to me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost 

(south 
And blown to in most north; at eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ; 
The leader wildswan in among the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of 

(glowworm light 
The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 
Because I would have reach'd you, had you 

(been 
Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the en- 

(throned 
Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 
A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 
Onoble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
On you, their centre : let me say but this. 
That many a famous man and woman, town 
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 
\ The dwarfs of pressage; tho' when known, 

(there grew 
Another kind of beauty in detail 
Made them worth knowing; but in you I 

(found 



My boyish dream involved and dazzled 

(down 
x\nd master'd, while that after-beautymakes 
Such head from act to act, from hour to 

(hour. 
Within me, that except you slay me here, 
According to your bitter statute-book, 
I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 
The seal does music ; who desire you more 
Than growing boys their manhood ; dying 

(lips. 
With many thousand matters left to do, 
The breath of life; more than poor men 

(wealth. 
Than sick men health — yours, yours, not 

(mine — but half 
Without you; with you,^ whole; and of those 

(halves 
You worthiest ; and ho we'er you block and 

(bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I 

(hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized 
Behold your father's letter." 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and 

(dash'd 
Unopen'd at her feet: a tide of fierce 
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, 
As waits a river level with the dam 
Ready to burst and flood the world with 

(foam : 
And so she would have spoken, but there 

(rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gather'd together : from the illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike 

(eyes, 
x\nd gold and golden heads ; they to and fr 
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, som6 red, 

(some pale. 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light. 
Some crying there was an army in the land, 
And some that men were in the very walls, 
And somethey carednot; till a clamour grew 
As of a new- world Babel, woman-built, 
And worse-confounded: high above them 

(stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 



16 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



IS'ot pccice slielook'djtlie Head: but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
Tothe open window moved,remaining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempestj when the crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her 

(arms and call'd 
Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 

,, What fear ye brawlers? am not I yourHead? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks -. / dare 
All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye 

(fear? 
Peace! there are those to avenge us and they 

(come : 
If not, — myself were like enougli, girls. 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, 
Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 
Six thousand years of fear have made you 

(that 
From which I would redeem you: but for 

(those 
That stir this hubbub — you and you — I 

(know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to morrow 

(morn 
We hold a great convention: then shall they 
That love their voices more than duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame 

(to live 
IN'o wiser than their mothers, household 

(stuff. 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame. 
Full of wesik poison,turnspits for the clown, 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks 

(of Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands and in 

(their heels, 
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance,to thrum, 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to 

(scour. 
For ever slaves at home and fools abroad." 

She, ending, waved her hands: thereat 

(the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, 

(that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 
When all the glens are drown'd in azure 

(gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and 

(said : 



„You have done well and like a gentleman. 
And like a prince: you have our thanks 

(for all : 
And you look well too in your woman's 

(dress : 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks: 
Better have died and spilt our bones in the 

(flood — 
Than men had said — but now — What 

(hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you 

(both? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good 

(hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 
Barbarians, grosser than your nativebears- 

would I had his sceptre for one hour! 
You that have dared to break our bound, 

(and gull'd 
Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwart- 

(ed us — 
/wed with thee! /bound by precontract 
Your bride, your bondslave! not tho' all 

(the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make 

(your crown, 
And every spoken tongue should lord 

(you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful 

(to us : 

1 trample on your offers and on you : 
Begone : we will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates." 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the 

(plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and ad- 

(dress'd 
Their motion : twice I sought to plead my 

(cause. 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro* 

(the court. 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at 

(gates. 

We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty 

(mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and 

(heard 
The voices murmuring.WliileIlisten'd,came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: 



TEE TEINCESS; A MEBLEI. 



167 



I seem'd to move uTnonpr a world of ghosts ; 
The Princess witli her monstrous woman- 

(guard, 
The jest and earnest working side by side, 
The cataract and the tumult and tlie kings 
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doing had and had not heen, 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a" gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
!Xot long, I shook it off; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but 
, (came 

As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer,midnight,]N'orway sun 
Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands : 
A moment, while the trumpets blow, 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

SoLilia sang: we thought her half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury thro* the 

(words ; 
And, after,feigning pique at what she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque,or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
The music — clapt her hands and cried for 
! (war, 

: Or some grand fight to kill and make an end: 
And he that next inherited the tale 
Half turning to the broken statue, said, 
, ,,Sir Ralph has got your colours : if I prove 
Your knight, and fisht your battle, what for 

(mer" 
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
She took it and she fl.ung it. ,,1'ight" she 

(said, 
-/And make us all we would be, great and 

(good." 
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the hall, 
Arranged the favour, and assumed the 

(Prince. 

V. 

Xow, scarce three paces measured from the 
(mound, 



We stumbled on a stationary voice, 

And, vStand, who goes?'' ,;Two from the 

(palace^- 1. 
„The second two: they wait, "he said,pass on; 
His Highness wakes :'■ and one, that clasli'd 

(in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas, 

(led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind : I stood and seem'd to 

(hear. 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind 

(wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, 
Each hissing in his neighbour's ear:andthen 
A strangled titter,, oufof which therebrake 
On all sides, clamouring- etiquette to death, 
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old 

(kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glit- 

(tering teeth," 
The huge bush-bearded Barons lieaved arid 

(blew. 
And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded 

(Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rougli cheek wet 

(with tears,' 
Panted from wearv sides ,/lving, you are 

(free! 
We did but keep you surety for our son, 
If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin , thou. 
That tends her bristled grunters in the 

(sludge:" 
I'or I was drencli'd with ooze.and torn with 

(briers, 
More crumpled than a poppy from the 

(sheath, 
And all one rag,disprinccd from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted 

(palm 
k whisper'd jest to some one near him 

(„Look, 
He has been among his shadows." ,/Satan 

(take 
The old women and theirshadowsl ^thus 

(tlie King 
BoAr'd) make yourself a man to fight with 

(men. 



168 

Go -.Cyril told us all." 



As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass- chiding eye, 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what w^as left of faded woman-sloiigh 
To sheating splendours an d the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of theEarth, 
And liit the northern hill.HereCyril met us, 
A little shy at hrst, hut by and by 
AVe twain^ with mutual pardon ask'd and 

(oiven 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, 

(whereon 
Follow'd his tale. Amazed he lied away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psvche weeping: „then w^efell 
Into your father's hand, and there she lies. 
But will not speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 
A stone-shot off : we enter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak, 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head 

(to foot, 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal. 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
Acharr'd and wrinkled pieceof womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and „Come"he whis- 
(per'd to her, 
„Lift up your head,s weet sister : lie not thus. 
What have you donebut right? you could 

(not slay 
Me, nor your prince: look up : be comtorted: 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought. 
When fall'n in darker way s. " And likewise I: 
„Be comforted : have I not lost her too, 
J n whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me ?'' She heard, she 

(moved, 
She moan'd a folded voice ; and up she sat. 
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and 

(smooth 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over 

(death 
In" deathless marble. „Her" she said „my 

(friend — 
Parted from her — betray'd her cause and 

(mine — 
AVhere shall I lireatheV why kept ye not your 
rfaithV 



TEE PRINCESS; A MEBLMY. 

base and bad! what comfort? none for 

(me'/' 
To whom remorseful Cyril ,,Yet I pray 
Take comfort: live,dear lady, for your chilcl!" 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried. 



,, Ah me,my babe,my blossom, ah my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no 

(more ! 
For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 
And either she will die from want of care. 
Or sicken Avith ill usage, when they say 
The child is hers — for every little fault, 
The child is hers ; and they will beat my girl 
Eemembering her mother : my flower ! 
Or they will take her, they will make her 

(hard, ^ ^.^ 

And she will pass me by in after-lite 
With some cold reverence worse than were 

(she dead. 
Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 
To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 
The horror of the shame among them all: 
But I will go and sit beside the doors. 
And make a wild petition night and day, 
Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 
And lav my little blossom at my feet, 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child: 
And I will take her up and go my way, 
And satisfy mv soul with kissing her : 
Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 
Who gave me back my child?" /yBe com 

(forted" 
Said Cyril „you shall have it:" but again 
She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank 

(and so . 

Like tender things that being caught teigi 

(death, 
Spoke not, nor stirr'd, 

By this a murmur rai 
Thro' all the camp and inward raced th 
(scouts , ^ ^^ . 

With rumour of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at park; and „Loo 

(you" cried 
My father „that our compact be fulfill d : 
You have spoilt this child; she laughs a 

(you and man : 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, an 

(him: 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and hrc 
Sheyields, or war." 



THE PRINCESS; A .MEDLEY. 



169 



Then Gania turn'd to me : 
„ We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl: and yet they say 

(that still . 

You love her. Give us, then, your mmd at 

(large : 
How say you, war ot not?" 

^Not war, if possible, 
king," I said, ,/lest from the abuse of war. 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
The smouldering homestead, and the house- 

(hold flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common 

(wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster: now she lightens 

(scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but then would 

(hate 
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it. 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
By gentleness than war. I want her love 
What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 
Your cities into shards with catapults, 
She would not love; — or brought her 

(chain'd, a slave. 
The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 
Isot ever would she love; but brooding turn 
The book of scorn, till all my little chance 
Were caught within the record of her 

(wrongs, 
And crush'd to death: and rather, bire, than 

(this 
I would the old God of war himself were 

(dead. 
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills. 
Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of 

(wreck, 
Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd m ice, 
ll^ot to be molten out." 

And roughly spake 
My father, „Tut, you know them not, the 

(girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 
That idiot legend credible. Look you. Sir ! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game ; 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 
Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for 

(shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to 
(them 



As he that does the thing they dare not do, 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, 

fcomes 
with the air of the trumpet round him, and 

(leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Ilatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd 

(with death 
He reddens what he kisses : thus I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 
Worth winning r but this firebrand — geu- 

(tleness 
To such as her! Cyril spake her true,. 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 
Were wisdom to it." 

„Yea but Sire," 1 cried, 
„Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? 

What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the 

(death, 
:N^o, not the soldier's: yet I hold her, king. 
True woman: but you clash them all in one, 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, 
Gloryfiying clown and satyr; whence they 

(need 
More breadth of culture: is not Ida right? 
They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 
Severer in th^ logic of a life ? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven ? and she of whom you 



My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 
Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch, 
But pure as lines of green that streak the 

(white . 

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; i say, 
Ts'ot like the piebald miscellany, man, 
Bursts of great heart and slips m sensual 

(mire, 
But whole and one: and take them all-in-ail. 
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 



170 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



As dues of Nature. To our poiut ; not war: 
Lest I lose all." 

,/Kay, uay, you spake but sense" 
Said Gama. „We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth; we did notrate bim then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped w^ith blows. 
You talk almost like Ida -. she can talk ; 
And there is something in it as you say: 
But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.- 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter : for the rest, 
Our owndetention,why, the causes weigh'd, 
latherly fears — youused us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it; and for your 'ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 
You did but come as goblins in the night, 
IS'^or in the furrow^ broke the ploughman's 

(bead, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the mil- 

(king-maid, 
Xor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream: 
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 
He comes back safe)ride with us to our lines, 
And speak with Arac: xirac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida: something maybe done — 
I know not what — and ours shall see us 

(friends. . 
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 
Follow us : who knows ? we four may build 

(some plan 
Foursquare to opposition." 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who 

(growPd 
kn answer which, half-muffled in his beard, 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the 

(lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of 

(Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and 

(woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 
In the old king's ears, who promised help, 

(and oozed 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode ; 
And blossom-fragrant alipt the heavy dew^s 
Gather'd by night and peace, with each light 

(air 
On our raail'd heads: but other thoughts 

(than Peace 



Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled 

(squares. 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the 

(flow^ers 
With clamour : for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king ; they made a halt; 
The horses yeU'd ; they clash'd their arms ; 

(the drum 
Beat ; merrily- blowing shrill'd the martial 

(life; 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced 
Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 
Such thews of men : the midmost and the 

(highest 
Was Arac : all about his montion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that play'd upon them, made 

(them glance 
Likejthose three stars ofthe airy Giant's zone, 
That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, 
And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
Their morions, wash'd with morning, as 

(they came. 

And I that prated 'peace, wlien first I 

(heard 
War music, felt the blind wildbeast of force , 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man. 
Stir in me as to strike: then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wander- 

(ing hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all : 
A common light of smiles at our disguise 
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labour'd down within his ample lungs, 
The genial giant, Arac, rolPd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

,/Our land invaded, *sdeath! and he him- 

(self 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war: 
And, 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 
But then this question of your troth re- 

(niains : 
And there's a downright honest meaning la 

(her; 
She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fairplay for lier 

(scheme ; 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 
What know I of these things ? but/life and 

(souL' 



THE PEINCJESS; A MEDLEY. 



171 



I thought her half-right talking of her 

(wrongs; 
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of 

(that ? 
I take her for the flower of woman kind, 
And so I often told her, right or wrong, 
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she 

(loves, 
And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 
I stand upon her side : she made me swear 

(it- 
'Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candle- 

(light- 
Swear by St. something — I forget her name - 
Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 
She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 
Come, this is all; she will not: waive your 

(claim: 
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
Decides it,'sdeath! against my father's will." 

I lagg'd in answer loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat „Like to like! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's 

(heart." 
A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a 

(blow! 
For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 
And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the 

(point 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame; 
,/Decide it here : why not ? we are three to 

(three." 

Then spake the third „But three to three ? 

(no more? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honour : every captain waits 
Hungry for honour, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each' 
May breathe himself, and quick! by over- 

(throw 
Of these or those, the question settled die." 

„Yea" answer'd I „for this wild wreath 

(of air. 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds — this honour, if ye 

(will. 
It needs must be for honour if at all : 
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail, 
And if we win, we fail : she would not keep 



Her compact.'' w'Sdeath ! but we will send 

(to her," 
Said Arac,„worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue: let our missive thro', 
And you shall have heranswer by the word." 

„Boys!" shriek'd the old king, but vain- 

(lier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
Regarded; neither seem'dtheremoreto say : 
Back rode we to my father's camp, and 

(found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
With her own people's life : three times he 

(went : 
The first, he blew and blew, but none ap- 

(pear'd: 
Ho batter'd at the doors ; none came : the 

(next. 
An awful voice within had warn'd him 

(thence: 
The third, and those eight daughters of 

(the plough 
Came sallying thro' the gates and caught 

(his hair. 
And so belabour'd him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild: not less one glance he 

(caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 
Of arms; and standing like a stately Pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
When storm is on the heights, and right 

(and left 
Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills 

(roll 
The torrents, dash'd to the vale: and yet 

(her will 
Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was 

(pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry ; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads: 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, 

(perforce 
He yielded,wroth and red,with fierce demur. 
And many a bold knight started up in heat: 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the field 



172 



TEE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



Flat to the g-arden-wall : aud likewise hei\;, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with 

(Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight. 
But now fast barr'd -. so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were ham- 

(mer'd up. 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
With message and defiance, went and came; 
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 
But shaken here and there,and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

,/0 brother, you have known the pangs 

(we felt, 
"What heats of indignation when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp 'd their women's 

(feet ; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal gift a 

(scourge ; 
Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
Where smoulder their dead despots; and of 

(those, — 
Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 
Their pretty maids in the running flood, and 

(swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion : and I saw 
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
With smoother men -. the old leaven leaven'd 

(all: 
Millions of throats would bawl for civil 

(rights, 
Ko woman named, therefore I set my face 
Against all men, andlived but for mine own. 
I'ar off' from men I built a fold for them: 
I stored it full of rich memorial : 
I fenced it round with gallant institutes, 
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey, 
And prosper'd ; till a rout of saucy boys 
Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our 

(peace, 
Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know 

(not what 
Of insolence and love, some pretext held 
Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 
Seal'd not the bond — the striplings! for 

(their sport ! — 
I 1;amed my leopards: shall I not tame 

(these? 
Or you ? or I ? for since you think me touch'd 



In honour — what, I would not aught of 

(false — 
Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know 
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's 

(blood 
You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 
What end soever: fail you will not. Still 
Take not liis life : he risk'd it for my own ; 
His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do. 
Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. 

(0 dear 
Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, 

(you 
The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 
The solemen we shall prize in the after-time, 
Your very armour hallo w'd and your statues 
Bear'd sung to, when this gad-fly brush'd 

(aside. 
We plant a solid foot into the Time, 
And mould a generation strong to move 
With claim on claim from right to right, 

(till she 
Whose name is yoked with children's, know 

(herself; 
And Knowledge in our own land make her 

(free, 
And, ever following those two crowned 

(twins, 
Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery 

(grain 
Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
Between the IN^orthern and the Southern 

(morn." 

Then came a postcript dash'd across the 

(rest. 
„See that there be no traitors in your camp: 
We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt-plague 

(of men ! 
Almost our maids were better at their 

(homes. 
Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think 
Our chiefest comfort is the little child 
Of one unworthy mother; which slie left: 
She shall not have it back: the child shall 

(grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
This morning: therethe tender orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from 

(thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world: 

(farewell." 



THE TRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



i78 



1 ceased; he said: ,;Stubboni, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms, 
Andbreed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling 

(king, 
This Garna swanip'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman 

(takes it up, 
Andtopples down the scales-, but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all; 
Man for the field and woman for the hearth: 
Man for the sword and for the needle she : 
Man with the head and woman with the 

(heart: 
Man to command and woman to obey ; 
All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of 

(Hell 
Mix with his hearth : but you — she's yet a 

(colt — 
Take, break her: strongly groom'd, and 

(straitly curb'd 
She might not rank with those detestable 
That let the bantling scald at home, and 

(brawl 
Their rights or wrongs like potherb's in the 

(street. 
They say she's comely; there's the fairer 

(chance : 
Hike her none the less for rating at her ! 
Besides, the woman wed is not as we, — 
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 
The bearing and the training of a child ' 
Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king : 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 
I pored upon her letter which I held. 
And on the little clause „take not his life :" 
I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 
Andonthe„Follow,follow,thoushaltwin:'' 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
And how the strange betrothment was to 

(end: 
Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's 

(curse 
That one should fight with shadows 'and 

(should fall; 
And like a flash the weird affection came : 
King, camp and college turn'd to hollow 

(shows ; 



I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts. 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts. 
To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 
And ere I woke it was the point of noon, 
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plu- 

(med 
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 
Opposed to fifty, till tlie trumpet blared 
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and once move 
The trumpet, and again: at which the storm 
Of gallopin g hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
xind riders front to front, until they closed 
In conflict with the crash of shivering 

(points, 
x\nd thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I 

(dream'd 
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept 

(their seats : 
Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and 

(drew : 
Part stumbled mixt with floundering hor- 

(ses. Down 
Prom those two bulks at Arac's side, and 

(down 
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 
The large blows rain'd, as here and eveiy- 

(where 
He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 
And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, 

(and shield — 
Shock'd, like an iron-clanging aiivil bang'd 
With hammers: till I thought, can this behe 
From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so. 
The mother makes us most — and in my 

(dream 
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
xilive with fluttering scarfs and ladies eyes, 
And high est, among the statues, statuefike, 
Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
A single band of gold about her hair, 
Like a Saint's glory up in licaven : but she 
No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight, 
Yea, let her see me fall ! with that I drave 
Among the thickest andbore down a Prince, 
xind Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream 
M\ that I would. But that large-moulded 

(man, 
His visage all agrin as at a wake, ' 



174 



TEE PRINCESS; A MEDLET. 



Made at rae thro' the press, and, staggering 

(back 
With stroke on stroke the horse and horse- 

(man, came 
As comes a pillar of electric cloud, 
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains. 
And shadowing down the champain till it 

strikes 
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and 

cracks, and sx)lits, 
And twists the grain with such a roar that 

(Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry: for everything 
Gave way before him-, only Florian, he 
That loved me closer than his own right eye, 
Thi'ust in between: but Arac rode him down 
AndCyril seeing it,push'd against thePrince 
With Psyche's colour round his helmet, 

(tough, 
Strong^ supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; 
Buttougher,heavier, stronger,hethat smote 
And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my 

(veins 
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand 

(to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we 

(hung. 
Till I struck out and shouted; the blade 

(glanced ; 
I did but shear a feather, and dream and 

(truth 
Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and 

(I fell. 

Home they brought her warrior dead, 

She nor swoon 'd, nor utter'd cry: 
All her maidens, watching, said, 

,,She must weep or she will die." 
Then they praised him, soft and low, 

Call'd him worthy to be loved. 
Truest friend and noblest foe; 

Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
Stole a maiden from her place, 

Liglitly to the warrior stept. 
Took the face-cloth from the face; 

Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
Rose a nurse of ninety years, 

Set his child upon her knee — 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 

„Svveet my child, I live for thee." 

YI. 

My dream hud never died or lived again. 



As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me, 
That all things grew more tragic and more 

(strange; 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my 

(cause 
For ever lost, there went up great cry, 
The Prince is slain . My father' heard and ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 
But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm: there on the 

(roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

,/Our enemies have fall'n, havefall'n : the 

(seed 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a 

(bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 
A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 

,/Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n they 

came ; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears: 

(they heard 
A noise of songsthey wouldnot understand: 
Theymark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n 

(themselves. 

„Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they 

(came. 
The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
But we will make it faggots for the hearth, 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and 

(floor, 
And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

„Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they 

(struck; 
With their own blows they hurt them- 

(selves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain: 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder 

(blade. 

„Our enemies have fall'n, but this sliall 

(grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



17 



Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and. 

(roll'd 
"With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, the 

(fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

„A.nd now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
To break them more in tlieir behoof, whose 

(arms 
Champion'd our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch'd in our annals, andperpetual feast. 
When dames and heroines of the golden 

(year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of 

(Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 
Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but 

(come. 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse 

(mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
The brethren of our blood and cause, that 

(there 
Lie bruised and main'd, the tender minis- 

(tries 
Of female hands and hospitality." 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her 

(arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, 

(and led 
A hundred maids in train across the Park. 
Some cowl'djand some bare-headed, on they 

(came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them 

(went 
The enamour'd air sighing, and on their 

(curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering 

(fell, 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade-, but 

(Blanche 
At distance follow'd: so they came : anon 
Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
Tliat holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, 
And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 
j^teps with a tender foot, lielit as on air, 
The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her wounded brethren lay; there 

(sta^y'd; 



Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — 

(andprest 
Their hands, and call'd tliem dear del i verers, 
And happy warriors, and immortal names. 
And said ,/You shall not lie in the tents but 

(here, 
And nursed by those for whom you fought, 

(and served 
With female hands and hospitality." 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it 

(chance. 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring witli bis whelpless eye. 
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd; and wiien she 

(saw 
Tliehaggard father'sface and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 
Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead 

(past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she 

(said : 
,/He saved my life : my brother sIcav him 

(for it." 
No more -. at which-the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the 

(tress, 
And held them up : she saw them, and a day 
Rose from the distance on her memory. 
When the good Queen, her mother, shore 

(the tress 
With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche ; 
And then once more shelook'dat my pale 

(face : 
Till understanding all the foolish work 
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 
Her iron will was broken in her mind; 
Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 
She bow'd, she set the child on the earth; 

(she laid 
A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 
„0 Sire," she said, „he lives : he is not dead : 
let me have him with my brethren here 
In our own palace : we will tend on him 
Like one of these ; if so, by any means. 
To lighten this great clog of thanks, that 

(make 
Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said : but at the happy word „he lives" 
My father stoop'd, re-father'd o'er my 
(wounds. 



176 



THE TRINCESSi A MEDLEY. 



So tlioBP, two foes above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like niglit and evening 

(mixt 
Their dark and gray, -while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by ns, 
Ilalf-lapt in glowing gauze and golden 

(brede, 
Lay like a uew-fall'n meteor on the grass, 
Un cared for, spied its mother and began 
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent 

(arms 
And lazy lingering lingers . She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamouring out ,/Mine — 

(mine — not yours, 
It is not yours, but mine : give me the child" 
Ceased all on tremble: piteous was the cry. 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd, 
And turn'd each face her w^ay : wan was her 

(cheek 
AVith hollow watch, her blooming mantle 

(torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 
And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and 

(half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
The laces toward her babe; but she nor 

(cared 
jVor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 
Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 
Eeside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
Trail'd himself up on one knee: then he 

(drew 
Her robe to meet his lips, and down she 

(look'd 
At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it 

Tseem'd, 
Or self-involved ; but when she learnt his 

(face. 
Remembering his ill omen'd song, arose 
Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him 

(grew 
Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in 8unshine,and he said : 

„0 fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 
That with your longs locks play the Lion's 

(mane ! 
Rut Love and Nature, these are two more 

(terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks. 
We vanquish'd, you the Victor of your will, 



What would you more ? give her the child! 

(remain 
Orb'd in your isolation : he is dead, 
Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
AVin you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, "^ where you seek the common love of 

(these, 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Ne- 

(mesis 
Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with 

(fire. 
And tread you out for ever: buthowsoe'er 
Fix'd in yourself, never in your own' arms 
To hold your own, deny not her's to her, 
Give her the child ! if, I say, you keep 
On pulse that beats true woman,if you loved 
The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, 
Or own one part of sense not flint to prayer. 
Give her tlie child ! or if you scorn to lay it, 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with 

(yours, 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 
The tenderness, not yours, that could not 

(kill, 
Give me it ; I will give it her." 

He said : 
At first her eye with slow dilation rolled 
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and 

(sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowine, 

(dwelt 
Full on the child ; she took it : Pretty bud ! 
Lily of the vale! half open'd bell of the 

(woods ! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend an d broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery. 
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farew^ell ; 
These men are hard upon us as of old, 
We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to 

(think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren 

(breast 
In the dead prime : but may thy mother 

(prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I 

(wish it 
Gentle as freedom" — liere she kiss'd it : 

(then — 
„A11 good go with thee 1 take it Sir" and so 



THE PRIXCESS: A MEDLEY. 



17/ 



Lnid the soft babe iu his hard-mailed haiulSj 
WIio turn'd half-roiifld to Psyche as she 

(sprang 
To meet it. with an eye that svv'um in 

Oliauks ; 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to 

(foot, 
And Imgg'd and never hugg'd it close 

(enough, 
And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it, 
And hid her bosom with it ; after that 
Put on more calm and added suppliantly ;. 

vWe two were friends: I go to mine own 

(land 
lor ever;ffiud some other : as for me 
I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet 

(speak to me, 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.'' 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac. Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the 

:,man : 
You wrong yoiu'selves — the woman is so 

(hard 
Vpon the woman. Come, a grace to me I 
I am \ our warrior: I and mine have fought 
Your'battle: kiss her; take her Land, she 

;^ weeps. 
'Sdeath: I would sooner fight thrice o'er 

(than see it." 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 

/I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
And I believe it. ^ot one word r not one r 
AYhence drew you this steel temper: not 

;from me, 
Not from your mother now a saint with 

(saints. 
She said vou had a heart — I heard her sav 

(it-' 
jOur Ida has a heart' — just ere she died — 
,But see that some one with authority 
Be near her still' and 1 — I sought for 

(one — 
All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche: much profit! ^N'ot one 

(word ■' 
^'o I tho' your father sues : see how you stand 
Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the goocl knights 

(maim'd, 
I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 
For your wildlwhim: andwas it then for this, 
"V^'as it for this we gave our palace up, 



Where w^e withdrew from sumnier beats 

(and state, 
And had our wine and cbess beneath the 

(planes. 
And many a pleasant hour with her that's 

(gone, 
Ere" you were born to vex us '? Is it kind ? 
Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom, 
"When first she came, all flush'd you said 

(to me 
Xow had you got a friend of your own age, 
Xow could you share your thought: now 

(^should men see 
Two women faster Avelded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock, she you walk'd 

(with, she 
You taik'd with, whole nights long, up in 

(the tower 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 
And right ascension, Heaven knows what : 

(and now 
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 
yot one to spare her: out upon you, flint I 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any: nay, 
You_ shame your mother's judgment too. 

(^ot one : 
You wil not r well — no heart have you, or 

(such 
As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.' 
So said the small king moved beyond his 

(wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her 

i^force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 
Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor 

(wept : 
Her head a little bent ;. and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water: then brake out my sire 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds. vO 

(you. 
Woman, whom we thought woman even 

I now, 
And werehalffool'dtolet you tend our son. 
Because he might have wish'd it — but we 

(see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven. 
And think that you might mix his draught 

vwith death, 
When your skies change again : the rougher 

(hand 
Is safer: on to tlie tents: take up the Prince.'' 



178 



THE PRINCESS; A BIEDLEY. 



He rose, and wliiJe eucli car was prick'd to 

(attend 
A tempest, tliro' the cloud that dimm'd her 

(broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and 

(shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. - 
„Come hither, 

Psyche," she cried out, ,/embrace me, come. 
Quick while I melt; make reconcilement 

(sure, 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour: 
Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 
/seem no more: /want forgiveness too: 

1 should have had to do with none but maids, 
That have no links with men. Ah false but 

(dear. 
Dear traitor, too much loved, why? — why? 

( — Yet see, 
Before these kings we embrace you yet once 

(more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon 

(hira, 
Like mine own brother. Eor my debt to him. 
This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know 

(it; 

Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall 

(have 
I'ree adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth: 
What use to keep them here — now ? grant 

(my prayer. 
Help,father, brother, help; speak to the king; 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and drags me 

(down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 
Poor weakling ev'n as they are.". 

Passionate tears 
I'ollow'd : the king replied not : Cyril said : 
„ Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for 

(him 
Of your great head — for he is wounded 

(too — 
That you may tend upon him with the 

(prince." 
„Ay so," said Ida with a bitter smile, 
,/Our laws are broken : let him enter too." 
Then Violet, she that sang th« mournful gong 



And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petition'd too for him. „Ay so," she said. 
,/I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 
„Ay so?"saidBlancbe:„AniazedamItoliear 
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks 

(with ease 
The law your Highness did not make: 

('twas 1.' 
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
And block'd them out ; but these men came 

(to woo 
Your Highness — verily I think to win." 

So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye : 
But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling 

(tower. 
Rang ruin, answer'dfull of grief and scorn. 

,/Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, 

(but all, 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul. 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, 
Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us, 
The roar that breaks thePharos from his base 
Had left us rock. She fain woul d sting us too, 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your 

(likes. 
We brook no further insult but are gone." 

She turn'd; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
Her brother came; the king her father 

(charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words: nor did 

(mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and 

(bare 
Straight to the doors: to them the doors 

(gave way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 
The virgin marble under iron heels : 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and 

(there 
Rested: but great the crush was, and each 

(base, 
To left and right, of those tall columns 

(drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers: at the further end 
Was Ida b.y the throne, the two great cats 



THE PRINCESS i A AlEDLET. 



179 



Close by hev, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear : but in the centre 

(stood 
The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armour clash'd or jingled, while the 

(day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and 

(shot 
A flying splendour out of brass and steel. 
Thai: o'er the statues leapt from head to 

(head, 
Xow fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
Xow set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up. 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and 

(died 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
And me thev bore up the broad stairs, and 

(thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and 

(due 
To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it; 
And others otherwhere they laid; and all 
That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
x\nd chariot, many a maiden passing home 
Till happier times ; but some were left of 

(those 
Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 
From those two hosts that lay beside the 

(walls, 
Walk'd at their will, and everything was 

(changed. 

Ask me no more : the moon may draw the 

(sea; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and 

(take the shape, 

With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 
But too fond, when have I answer'dthee ? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give ? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
Yet, my friend, I will not have thee die ! 

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are 
(seal'd : 
1 strove against the stream and allin vain: 



Let the great river take me to the main : 
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more. 



So was their sanctuary violated. 
So their fair college turn'dto hospital; 
At first with all confusion : by and bye 
Sweet order lived again with other laws : 
A kindlier influence reign'd, and everywhere 
Low voices with the ministerino; hand 
Hung round the sick: the maidens came, 

(they talk 'd, 
They sang, they read : till she not fair, began 
To gather light, and she that was, became 
Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 
With books, with flowers, with Angel offi- 

(ces. 
Like creatures native unto gracious act, 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with 

(shame. 
Old studies fail'd ; seldom she spoke ; but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for 

(ho urs 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field: void was her 

(use ; 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a great black 

(cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of nigh t, 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, 
And suck the blinding splendour from the 

(sand. 
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by 

(tarn 
Expunge the world: so fared she gazing 

(there ; 
So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she 

(came. 
And found fair peace once more among the 

(sick. 

And twilight dawn'd; and morn by morn 

(the lark 
Shot up andshrilPd inflickering gyres,but I 
Lay silent in the mufled cage of life : 
And twilight gloom'd ; and broader-grown 

(the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and 

(Heaven, 



180 



TEE PRINCESS; A MELLET, 



Star after star, arose and fell ; but I , 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reacli 

(me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
yor knew what eye was on me,nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their 

(sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft, 
Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but 

(left 
Her child among us, willing she should 

(keep 
Conrt-favour: here and there the small 

(bright head, 
A light of healing, glanced about the couch 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
■\Vith blush and smile, a medicine in them- 

(selves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, 

(and draw 
The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange 

(that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 
Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd tliat 

(hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper 

(down, 
And slip once all-fragant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
At first with Psyche, ^'ot tho' Blanche had 

(sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields, 
She needs must wed him for her own good 

(name ; 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restored ; 
IS^or tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ;till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush'd and she past on ; but each 
Assumed from thence a half-consent invol- 

(ved 
In stillness, pligthed troth, and were at 

(peace. 

Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 
With showers of random sweet on maid and 

(man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim, 



Nor did mine own now reconciled ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and 

(whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would 

(catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 
,/You are not Ida :" clasp it once again, 
And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 
And call her sweet, as if in irony, 
And call her hard and cold which seem'd a 

(truth: 
And still she fear'd that i should lose my 

(mind, 
And often she believed that I should die : 
Till out of long frustration of her care, 
Andpensivetendance in the all-weary noons, 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when 

(clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or 

(call'd 
On flying Time from all their silver 

(tongues — 
And out of memories of her kindlier days, 
And sidelong glances at my father's grief. 
And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
And out of hauntings of my spoken love. 
And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 
And often feeling of the helpless hands, 
xind wordless broodings on the wasted 

(cheek — 
From all a closer interest flourish'd up. 
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to 

(these, 
Love, like an xUpine harebell hung with 

(tears 
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of itself. 
But such as gather'd colour day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nidi close to 

(death 
For weakness : it was evening: silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were 

(wrought 
Two grand designs : for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they 

(crammed 
The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest 
A dwaiflike Cato cower 'd. On the other side 
Hortensiu spoke against the tax; behind, 



THE PEINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



181 



A train oi" dames : by axe and eagle sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman 

(scowls 
And half the wolf's-milk eurdled in their 

(veins, 
The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused 
Ilortensia, pleading: angry was her face. 

I saw the forms: 1 knew not where I was : 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor 

(more 
Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 
Dwelt in her eyes , and softer all her shape 
And rounder seem'd: I moved: Isigh'd: a 

(touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my 

(hand : 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I 

(had. 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Eixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisper- 

(ingly : 

„lt you be, what I think you, some sweet 

(dream, 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream. 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall do to- night. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'' 

I could no more,but lay like one in trance. 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his 

(friends, 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one 

(sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; 

(she paused; 
She stoop'd; and out oflanguorleaptacry; 
Leapt fiery Passion from th e brinks of death ; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, 
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould that other,w^hen she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
And down the streaming crystal dropt; 

(and she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and wave, 



To meet her Graces, whfere they deck*d her 

(out 
For worship without end; nor end of mine, 
Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided 

(forth. 
Nor glanced l^ehind her, and I sank and 

(slept, 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy 

(sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, 

(held 
A volume of the Poets of her laud : 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read, 

//Now sleeps the crimson petal, noAv the 

(white ; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace wa]k ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
The fire-fly wakens : waken thou w'ith me. 

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a 

(ghost. 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me." 

I heard her turn the page ; she found a 

(small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read 

„Come down, maid, from yonder moun= 

(tain height : 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd 

(sang) 
In height and cold, the splendour of the 

(hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and 

(cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find hini; by the happy threshold, he, 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
WithDeath andMorning on the silver horns, 
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine. 
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice. 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 



182 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
To find him in the valley ; let the wild 
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and 

(spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water- 

(smoke. 
That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
So waste not thou; but come; for all the 

(vales 
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; 
Myriads ofrivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

So she low-toned; while witti shut eyes 

(Hay 
Listening; then look'd. Pale was the per- 

(fect face ; 
The bosom with long sighs labour'd; and 

(meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous 

(eyes. 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She 

(said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility ; had fail'd in all ; 
That all her labour was but as a block 
Left in the quarry; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one. 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal 

(rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous 

(laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause 

(from her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth 

(than power 
In knowledge: something wild within her 

(breast, 
A greater than all knowledge.beat her down . 
And she had nursed me there from week 

(to week : 
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true liearts: yet was she but a girl — 
„Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! 
\Vhen comes another such? never, I think, 
Till the Sun drop dead from tlie signs. ^' 

Her voice 



Choked, and her forehead sank upon her 

(hands. 
And her great heart thro' all the faultful 

(Past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not 

(break ; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 
That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 

„Blame not thyself too much,'' I said, 

O,nor blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous 

(laws ; 
These were the rough ways of the world 

(till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that 

(know 
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or 

(sink 
Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free : 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with 

(man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one 

(goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands-- 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow ? but work no more 

(alone ! 
Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up but drag her 

(down — 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undevelopt man, 
But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is 

(this, 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 
The man be more of woman, she of man; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw 

(the world; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward 

(care. 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind 



TEE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 



1S3 



Till at the last she set herself to man, 
Like perfect music unto uoble words; 
And so these twain.iipon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, fiiU-summ'd in all their 

(powers* 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 
Distinct in individualities, 
But like each other ev'n as those who love. 
Then comes the statelier Eden back td men: 
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste 

(and calm : 
Then springs the crowning; race of human- 

(kind. 
May these things be!" 

Sighing she spoke „I fear 
They will not." 

,/Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword 

(rest 
Of equal ;. seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
iS'or equal, nor unequal: each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in 

(thought. 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and perfect animal, 
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full 

(stroke. 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke ; ,, A dream 
That once was mine! what woman taught 

(you this?" 

./Alone" I said „from earlier than I know, 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the 

(world, 
I loved the woman : he, that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death. 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with i 

(crime : 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, ' 

(one I 

Jsot learned, save in gracious household [ 

(ways, I 

Not perfect, nay, but full offender want a, 
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
Too gross to tread, and all male minds per- 

(force 



Sway'd to her from their orbits as they 

(moved. 
And girdled her with music. Happy he 
With'^such a moilier! faith in womankind " 
Beats with his blood, and trust in alltliin«-s 

(high 
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and lull 
He shall not blind liis soul with clav." 

,;Buti," 

Said Ida, tremulously, ./SO all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with 

(words:' 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts: they well might be: 

(I seem 
A mockery to my own self, ^'ever, Prince; 
You cannot love me." 

„yay but thee" I said 
,,rrom yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, 
Ere seen I loved, and loved'thee seen, and 

(saw 
Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up. 

(and forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: 

(now, 
Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 
Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are 

(dead. 
My haunting sense of hollow shows: the 

(change. 
This truthful chanee in thee has kill'd it. 

(Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 
Like yonder morning on the blind half- 

(world ; 
Approach and fear not: breathe upon my 

(brows; 
In that fine air I tremble : all the past 
Melts mist-like into this brisht hour, and 

(this 
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 
Heels, as the goldenAutumn woodland reels 
Athward the smoke of burning weeds, Eor- 

(give me, 
I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
My wife, my life. we will walk this world, 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end. 
And so thro' those dark gates across the 

(wild 
That no man knows, Indeed I love thee : 

(coHie, 



184 



TFIE PRINCESS; J MEDLEY. 



Yield tliyself up: my hopes iuid tliine are 

(one: 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to 

(mc." 

c o X c L u s I o X. 
So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 
The words are mostly mine ; for wiien we 

(ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter 

(said, 
,,I wish she had not yielded !'- then to me, 
,,What, if you drest it up poetically!" 
So pray'd'the men, the women : I gave as- 

(sent: 
Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of 

(seven 
Together in one sheaf? What style could 

(suit ? 
The men required that I should give 

(throughout 
TJie sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 
With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 
The women — and perhaps they felt their 

(power, 
For something in the ballads which they 

(sang, 
Or in their silent influence as they sat, 
Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
They hated banter, wish'd for something 

(real, 
A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 
Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime ? 
Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 
Which yet with such a framework scarce 

(could be. 
Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 
Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 
And I, betwixt them both, to please them 

(both, 
And yet to give the story as it rose, 
1 moved as in a strange diagonal. 
And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute: the sequel of the tale 
Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd 

(the grass, 
She flungit from her, thinking: last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
.,You — tell us what we are" who might 

(have told, 



lor she was cramiu'd with theories out of 

(books, 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were 

(closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming 

(now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these: we 

(climb'd 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of 

(peace; 
Gray halls alone among their massive 

(groves ; 
Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tow^er 
Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of 

(wheat ; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream; the 

(seas ; 
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond, 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of 

(France. 

„Look there, a garden!" said my college 

(friend, 
The Tory member's elder ?on „and there ! 
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her 

(off, 
xind keeps ourBritain,whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have 

(made, 
Some patient force to change them when 

(we will, 
Some civic manhood firm against the 

(crowd — 
But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden 

(heat, 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, 
The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the 

(world 
In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
]S'o graver than a schoolboy's barring out ; 
Too comic for the solemn things they are, 
Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
As some of theirs — God bless the narrow 

(seas ■! 



ENOCH ARDEN 
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." ' 
„Have patience/' I replied, ,, ourselves are 



185 



(full 

Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
xire but the needful preludes of the truth : 
I'or me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith, 
This line old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that 

(guides/' 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden 

(rails, 
xind there we saw Sir "Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
Among six boy s,head under head, and look'd 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
xi great broad-shoulder*d genial English- 

(man, 
xi lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A. raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
xA. patron of some thirty charities, 
k pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none; 
lair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of 

(those 
That stood the nearest — now address'd to 

(speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as 

(closed, 
Welcome,farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookery 

(swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of 

(the deer 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and 

(rang 
Beyond the bourn of sunset ; 0, a shout 
More joyful than the city-roar that hails 
Premier or king! Why' should not these 

(great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
To let the people breathe ? So thrice they 

(cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd 

(away, 

But we went back to the Abbey,and sat on, 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd : 

(we sat 
But spoke nf t, rapt in nameless reverie, 
Perchance upon the future man : the walls 



Slacken'd about us, bats wlieel'd and owls 

(whoop'd, 
And gradually the powers of tlie night. 
That range above the region of the wind. 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke 

(them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Hea- 

(vens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 
Disrobed the glimmeringstatue of Sir Ralph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleas- 

(ed we went. 

ENOCH ARDEN. 

LoxG lines of cliff breaking have left a 

(chasm ; 
xA.nd in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; 
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf 
In 'cluster; then a moulder'd church; and 

(higher 
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill- 
And high in heaven behind it a gray down 
With Danish barrows; and a hazel'wood, 
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes 
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down. 

Here on this beach a hundred years ago. 
Three children of three houses, xinnie Lee, 
The prettiest little damsel in the port, 
xind Philip Bay, the miller's only son, 
xind Enoch xirden, a rough sailor's lad 
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd 
ximong the waste and lumber of the shore, 
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,- 
xinchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn; 
And built their castles of dissolving sand 
To watch them overflow'd, or following up 
xind flying the white breaker, daily left 
The little footprint daily wash'd away. 

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: 
In this the children play'd at keepinghouse. 
Enoch was host one day, Philip the next. 
While xlnnie still was mistress; but at times 
Enoch would hold possession for a week: 
,;This is my house and this my little wife.'' 
„Mine too" said Philip ,/turn and turn 

(about:'' 
When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger- 

(made 
Was master: then would Philip, hi s blue eyes 
xill flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, 
Shriek out ,,1 hate you, Enoch," and at this 
The little wife would weep for company, 



186 



ENOCH ARDEN, 



And pray them not to quaiTel for her sake, 
And say she would be little wife to both. 

But when the dawn of rosy childhoodpast. 
And the new warmth of life's ascending sun 
"Was felt by either, either Hxt his heart 
On that one girl ; and Enoch spoke his love, 
But Philip loved in silence ; and the girl 
Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him; 
But she loved Enoch ; tho' she knew it not, 
And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set 
A purpose evermore before his eyes, 
To hoard all savings to the uttermost, 
To purchase his own boat, and make a home 
Eor Annie: and so prosper'd that a last 
A luckier or a bolder fisherman, 
A carefuller in peril, did not breathe 
Eor leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year 
On board a merchantman, and made himself 
Full sailor, and he thrice had pluck'd a life 
From the dread sweep of the down-stream- 

(ing seas : 
And all men look'd upon him favourably: 
And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth 

(May 
He purchased his own boat, and made a 

(home 
Eor Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway up 
The narrow street that clamber'd toward 

(the mill. 

Then, on a golden autumn eventide. 
The younger people making holiday, 
With bag and sack and basket, great and 

(small, 
Went nutting to the hazels. Philip stay'd 
(His father lying sick and needing him) 
An hour behind ; but as he climb'd the hill, 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, 
Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-liand, 
His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face 
All kindled by a still and sacred fire, 
Tliat burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd. 
And in their eys and faces read his doom; 
Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd. 
And slipt aside, and like a woanded life 
Crept down into the hollows of the wood ; 
There, while the rest were loud in merry- 

(making, * 

Had liis dark hour unseen, and rose and past 
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. 

So these were wed, and merrily rang the 

(bells, 



And merrily ran the years, seven happy 

(years, 
Seven happy years of health and corape- 

(tence, 
And mutual love and honourable toil; 
With children; first a daughter. In him 

(woke, 
With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish 
To save all earnings to the uttermost, 
And give his child a better bringing- up 
Than his had been, or hers ; a wish renew'd, 
When two years after came a boy to be 
The rosy idol of her solitudes, 
While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, 
Or often journeying landward, for in truth 
Enoch's Avhite horse, and Enoch's ocean- 

(spoil 
In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, 
Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter 

(gales, 
IS'ot only to the market-cross were known. 
But in the leafy lanes behind the down, 
Ear as the portal-warding lion-whelp. 
And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, 
Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. 

Then came a change, as all things human 

(change. 
Ten miles to northward of the narrow port 
Open'd a larger haven : thither used 
Enoch at times to go by land or sea; 
And once when there, and clambering on a 

(mast 
In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell : 
A limb was broken when they lifted him ; 
And while he lay recovering there, his wife 
Bore him another son, a sickly one: 
Another hand crept too across his trade 
Taking her bread and theirs; and on him 

(fell, 
Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, 
Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. 
He seem'd as in a nightmare of the night, 
To see his children leading evermore 
Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, 
iind her, he loved, a beggar : then he pray'd 
„Save them from this, whatever comes to 

(me." 
And while he pray'd,the master of that ship 
Enoch had served in,hearing his mischance, 
Came,for he knew the man and valued him, 
Reporting of his vessel China-bound, 
And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he 

(go ? 



ENOCH ARBEN. 



187 



There yet were many weeks before she 

(sail'd, 
Sail'd from this port. Would Enoch have 

(the place ? 
And Enoch all at once assented to it, 
Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. 
So now that shadow of mischance appear'd 
No graver than as when some little cloud 
Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun, 
And isles a light in the offing; yet the wife— 
When he was gone — the children — what 

(to do ? 
Then Enochlay long-pondering on his plans; 
To seil the boat — and yet he loved her 
(well — 
How many a rough sea had he weathered in 

(her ! 
He knew her, as a horseman knows his 

(horse — 
And yet to sell her — then with what she 

(brought 
Buy goods and stores — set Annie forth in 

(trade 
With all that seamen needed or their 

(wives — 
So might she keep the house while he was 

(gone. 
Should he not trade himself out yonder ? go 
This voyage more than once? yea twice or 

(thrice — 
As oft as needed — last, returning rich, 
Become the master of a larger craft. 
With fuller profits lead an easier life, 
Have all his pretty young ones educated, 
And pass his days iu peace among his own. 

Thus Enoch hin his heart determined all : 
Then moving homeward came onAnnie pale, 
Is ursing the sickly babe, her latest-born. 
Forward she started with a happy cry. 
And laid the feeble infant in his arms; 
WhomEnoch took, and handled all his limbs, 
Appraised his weight and fondled fatherlike, 
But had no heart to break his purposes 
To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 
Then first, since Enoch's golden ring had 
(girt 
Her finger, Annie fought against his will : 
Yet not with brawling opposition she. 
But manifold entreaties, many a tear. 
Many a sad kiss by day by night renew'd 
(Sure that all evilwould come out of it) 
Besought him, supplicating, if he cared 
For her or his dear children, not to go. 



He not for his own self caring but her. 
Her and her childern, let her plead in vain ; 
So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. 

Eor Enoch parted with his old sea friend, 
Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his 

(hand 
To fit their little streetward sitting-room 
With shelf and corner for the goods and 

(stores. 
So all day long till Enoch's last at home. 
Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe, 
Auger and saw, while Annie seem'd to hear 
Her own death-scaffold raising, shrill'd and 

(rang, 
Till this was ended, and his careful hand, — 
The space was narrow, — having order'd all 
Almost as neat and close as Nature packs 
Her blossom or herseedliug,paused; and he, 
Who needs would work forAnnie to the last. 
Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. 

And Enoch faced this morning of farewell 
Brightly and boldly. All his Annie's fears, 
Save, as his Annie's, were a laughter to him. 
Yet Enoch as a brave God-fearing man 
Bow'd himself down, and in that mystery 
Where God-in-man is one with man-m-God, 
Pray'd for a blessing on his wife and babes 
Whatever came to him -. and then he said 
,/Annie, this voyage by the grace of God 
Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. 
Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me, 
Eor I'll be back,my girl,before you know it.'' 
Then lightly rocking baby's cradle ,,and he. 
This pretty, puny, weakly little one, — 
Nay — for I love him all the better for it — - 
God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
And I will tell him tales of foreign parts, 
And make him merry, when I come home 

(again. 
Come Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 

Him running on thus hopefully she heard. 
And almost hoped herself; but when he 

(turn'd 
The current of his talk to graver things 
In sailor fashion roughly sermonizing 
On providence and trust in Heaven, she 

(heard. 
Heard and not heard him ; as the village 

(girl, 
W ho sets her pitcher underneath the spring, 
Musing on him that used to fill it for her, 
Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 



188 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



At length she spoke .,0 Enoch, you are 

(wise ; 
And yet for all your wisdom well know I 
That'l shall look upon your face no more.'' 

„Well then/' said Enoch. -J shall look on 

(yours. 
Aniiie, the ship I sail in passes here 
(He named the day) get you a seaman's 

(glass, 
Spy out my face,and laugh at all your fears.'' 

But when the last of those last moments 

(came, 
-/.Vjinie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted, 
Look to the babes, and till I come again. 
Keep everything ship shape," for I must go. 
And fear no more for me ; or if you fear 
Cast all your cares on God; that anchor 

(holds. 
Is He not yonder in those uttermost 
Parts of the morning r if I flee to these 
Can I go from Him? and the sea is His, 
The sea is Hiss: He made it.'' 

Enoch rose. 
Cast his strong arms about his drooping 

(wife, 
And kiss'd his wonder-stricken little ones ; 
But for the third, the sickly one, who slept 
After a night of feverous wakefulness, 
AVhen Annie would have raised him Enoch 

(said 
vAVake him not; let him sleep; how should 

';the child. 
Kemember this'r" and kiss'd him in his cot. 
But Annie from her baby's forehead dipt 
A tiny curl, and gave it : this he kept 
Thro' all his future ; but now hastily caught 
His bundle, waved his hand, and went bis 

(way. 

She when the day, that Enoch mention 'd, 

(came, 
Borrow'd a glass, but all in vain : perhaps 
She could not fix the glass to suit her eye; 
Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous; 
She saw him not: and while he stood on deck 
Waving, the moment and the vessel past. 

Ev'n to the last dip of the vanishing sail 
She watch'd it, and departed weeping for 

(him; 
Then, tho' she mourn'dhis absence as his 

(grave. 
Set he'r sad will no less to chime with his, 
But throve not in her trade, not being bred 
To barter, compensating the want 



By shrewdness, neither capable of lies, 
^'or asking overmuch and taking less, 
And stiir foreboding ,, what would Enoch 

(say?" 
Eor niore than once, in days of difficulty 
Andpressui-e, had she sold her wares for less 
Than what she gave in buying what she 

(sold : 
She fail'd and sadden'd knowing it ; and 

(thus, 
Expectant of that news which never came, 
Gain'd for her own a scanty sustenance. 
And lived a life of silent melancholy. 

^'ow the third child was sickly-bcrn and 

I'grew 
Yet sicklier, tho' the mother cared for it 
With all a mother's care : nevertheless, 
Whether her business often call'd her 

(from it. 
Or thro' the want of what it needed most, 
Or means to pay the voice who best could 

(tell 
What most it needed — howsoe'er it was, 
After a lingering, — ere she was aware, — 
Like the caged bird escaping suddenly : 
The little innocent sourilit'ted away. 

In that same week when Annie buried it, 
Philip's true heart, which hunger'd for her 

(peace 
(Since Enoch left he had not look'd upon 

her), 
Smote him, as having kept aloof so long. 
,,Surely'' said Philip ,,I may see her now, 
May be some little comfort ;'• therefore went, 
Past thro' the solitary room in front. 
Paused for a moment at an inner door. 
Then struck it thrice, and, no one opening, 
Enter'd ; but Annie, seated with her grief, 
Fresh from the burial of her little one. 
Cared not to look on any human face. 
But turn'd her own toward the wall and 

(wept. 
Then Philip standing up said falteringly 
V Annie, I came to ask a favour of you." 

He spoke, the passion in her moan'd reply 
./Eavour from one so sad and so forlorn 
As I ami" half abash'd him; yet unask'd, 
His bashfulness and tenderness at war, 
He set himself beside her, saying to her : 

,/l came to speak to you of what he wish'd, 
Enoch, your husband: I have ever said 
You chose the best among us — a strong man: 
Eor where he fixt his heart he set his hand 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



189 



To do the thing he will'd. and bore it tliro'. 
And wherefore did he go this weary way, 
And leave you lonely ? not to see the world — 
For pleasure? — nay, but for thewhere- 

(withal 
To give his babes a better bringing-up 
Than his had been, or yours : that was his 

(wish. 
And if he come again, vext will he be 
To find the precious morning hours were lost. 
And it would vex him even in his grave. 
It' he could know his babes were running 

(wild 
Like colts about the waste. So, Annie, 

(now — 
Have we not known each other all our lives r 
1 do beseech you by the love you bear 
Him and his children not to say me nay — 
Tor, if you will, when Enoch comes again 
Why then he shall repay me — if you will, 
Annie — for I am rich and well-to-do. 
Xow let me put the boy and girl to school : 
This is the favour that t came to ask.'- 

Then Annie with her brows aeainst the 

(wall 
Answer'd „I cannot look you in the face ; 
1 seem so foolish and so broken down. 
When you came in my sorrow broke me 

vdown ,; 
And now I think your kindness breaks me 

.down, 
But Enoch lives: that is borne in on me: 
He will repay you: money can be repaid; 
]S'ot kindness such as yours." 

And Philip ask'd 
,,Then you will let me, Annie?'' 

There she turn'd. 
She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon 

(him, 
And dwelt a moment on his kindly face, 
Then calling down a blessing on his head 
Caught at his hand, and wrung it passio- 

(nately, 
And past into the little garth bej-ond. 
So lifted up in spirit he moved away. 

Then Philip put the boyand girl to school, 
And bought them needful books, and every- 

(way, 
Like one who does his duty by his own, 
Madehim.-elftheirs^andtho'forAnnie'srake, 
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port. 
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish. 
And seldom ciost her threshold, vet he sent 



Gifts by the childreii,garden-herbs and fruit, 
The late and early roses from his wall. 
Or conies from the down, and now and then. 
With some pretext of fineness in the meal 
To save the offence of charitable, flour 
From his tall mill that whistled on the 

(waste. 

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind : 
Scarce could the woman when he came 

(upon her. 
Out of full heart and boundless gratitude 
Light on a broken word to thank him with. 
But Philip was her children's all-in-all; 
From distant corners of the street they ran 
To greet his hearty welcome heartily: 
Lords of his house and of his mill were they; 
Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs 
Or pleasures, hung upon him, play'd with 

(him 
And call'd him Father Philip. Philip gain'd 
As Enoch lost; For Enoch seem'd to them 
j I'd certain as a vision or a dream. 
Faint as a figure seen in early daAvn 
Down at the far end of an avenue. 
Going we know not where: and so ten years, 
Since Enoch left his hearth and native'land. 
Fled forward, and no news of Enoch came. 

It chanced one evening Annie's children 

(long'd 
To go with others, nutting to the wood, 
And Annie would go with them; then thev 

(begg'd 
For Father Philip (as they calFd him) too : 
Him, like the working bee in blossom-dust, 
Blanch'd with his mill, they found; and 

(saying to him 
„Come with us Father Philip'' he denied; 
But when the children pluck'd at him to go, 
He laugh'd, and yielded readily to their wish, 
For was not Annie with them? and they 

(went. 

But after scaling half the weary down, 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, all her force 
Fail'd Iier; and sighing.;let merest'she said: 
So Philip rested with her well-content: 
While all the younger ones with jubilant 

(cries 
Broke from their elders, and tumultuously 
Down thro' the whitening hazels made a 

(plunge 
To tlie bottom, and dispersed, and bent or 
(broke 



190 



ENOCH JRDEN. 



The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away 
Their tawny clusters, crying to each other 
And calling, liere and there,about the wood. 

But Philip sifting at her side forgot 
Her presence, and remember'd one dark 

(hour 
Here in this wood, when like a wounded life 
He crept into the shadow : at last he said 
Lifting his honest forehead ,,. Listen Annie, 
How merry they are down yonder in the 

(wood. 
Tired, Annie?" for she did not speak a word. 
„Tired?" but her face had fall'n upon her 

(hands : 
At which, as with a kind of anger in him, 
,,The ship was lost" he said „the ship was 

(lost ! 
^'o more of that ! why should you kill your- 

(self 
And make them orphans quite?" And Annie 

(said 
„I thought not ©f it : but — I know not 

(why — 
Their voices make me feel so solitary." 

Then Philip coming somewhat closer 

(spoke. 
,, Annie, there is a thing upon my mind, 
And it has been upon my mind so long, 
That tho' I know not when it first came 

(there, 
I know that it will out at last. Annie, 
It is beyond all hope, against all chance, 
That he who left you ten long years ago 
Should still be living: well then — let me 



I grieve to see you poor and wanting help : 
I cannot help you as I wish to do 
Unless — they say that women are so quick — 
Perhaps you know what I would have you 

(know — 
I wish you for my wife. I fain would prove 
A father to your children: I do think 
They love me as a father : I am sure 
That I love them as if they were mine own ; 
And I believe, if you were fast my wife, 
That after all these sad uncertain years, 
We might be still as happy as God grants 
To any of His creatures. Think upon it : 
Tor I am well-to-do — no kin, no care, 
yo burthen, save my care for you and yours: 
And we have known each other all our lives, 
And 1 have loved you longer than you know." 

Then answer'd Anniej tenderly she spoke: 



.,You have been as God's good angel in our 

(house. 
God bless you for it, God reward you for it, 
Philip, with something happier than myself. 
Can one love twice? can you be ever loved 
As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?" 
„1 am content" he answer'd „to be loved 
A little after Enoch." ,,0' she cried 
Scared as it were ,,dear Philip, wait a while: 
If Enoch comes — butEnoch will not come — 
Yet wait a year, a year is not so long: 
Surely I shall be wiser in a year : 

wait a little!" Philip sadly said 

„ Annie, as I have waited all my life 

1 well may wait a little." /,]S'ay" she cried 
1,1 am bound : you have my promise — in a 

(year: 
Will you not bide your year as I bide mine?" 
And Philip answ^er'd „1 will bide my year." 

Here botn were mute.tillPhiiip glancing up 
Behold the dead flame of the fallen day 
Pass from the Danish Imrrow overhead ; 
Then fearing night and chill for Annie rose. 
And sent his voice beneath him thro' the 

(wood. 
Up came the children laden with their spoil: 
Then all descended to the port, and there 
At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, 
Saying gently „ Annie, when I spoke to you, 
That was your hour of weakness. I was 

(wrong 
I am always bound to you, but you are free." 
Then Annie weeping answer'd „I am bound," 

She spoke ; and in one moment as it were, 
While yet she went about her household 

(ways, 
Ev'n as she dwelt upon his latest words, 
That he had loved her longer than she knew, 
That autumn into autumn flash'd again, 
And there he stood once more before her face, 
Claiming her promise. ,,Is it a year?" she 

(ask'd. 
„Yes, if the nuts" he said „be ripe again: 
Come out and see." But she — she put him 

(ofe— 

So much to look to — such a change — a 

(month — 
Give her a month — she knew that she was 

(bound — 
A month — no more. Then Philip with his 

(eyes 
Pull of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand. 



ENOCH ARBEN, 



191 



T „Take your own time, Annie, take your own 

" (time.^' 

[ And Annie could have wept for pity of him ; 

{ And yet she held him on delayingly 
With many a soarce-believabie excuse, 
Trying his" truth and his long-sufferance, 
Till half-another year had slipt away. 



By this tlio lazy gossips of tlie port, 
Abhorrent of a calculation crost. 
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. 
Some thought that Philip did hut trifle with 

(her; 
Some that she but held off to draw him on ; 
And others laugh'd at her and Philip too, 
As simple folk that knew not their own 

(minds; 
And one, in whom all evil fancies clung 
Like serpent eggs together, laughingly 
"Would hint at worse in either. Her own son 
Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish; 
But evermore the daughter prest upon her 
To wed the man so dear to all of them 
And lift the household out of poverty; 
And Philip's rosy face contracting grew 
Careworn and wan; and all these things fell 

(on her 
Sharp as reproach. 

At last one night it chanced 
That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly 
Pray'd for a sign /,my Enoch is he gone?" 
Then compass'd round by the blind wall of 

(night 
Brook'd not the expectant terror of herheart, 
Started from bed, and struck herself a light, 
Then desperately seized the holy Book, 
Suddenly set it wide to find a sign. 
Suddenly put her finger on the text, 
,/ Under a palnitree." That was nothing to 

(her : 
No meaning there: she closed the Book and 

(slept : 
When lo ! her Enoch sitting on a height, 
Under a palmtree, over him the Sun : 
„He is gone" she thought ,;he is happy, he 

(is singing 
Hosanna in the highest : yonder shines 
The Sun of Righteousness, and these be 

(palms 
Whereof the happy people strowing cried 
'Hosanna in tlie highest !'" Here she woke^ 
Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to 

(hi in 
„There isnoreason why we should not wed." 



,yThen for God's sake,"' he auswer'd, ,,hotli 

(our sakcs, 
So you will wed me, let it be at once.'' 

So these were wed and merrily rang the 

(bells, 
Merrily rang the bells and they were wed. 
But never merrily beat Annie's heart. 
A footstep seem'd to fall beside her path, ' 
She knew not whence ; a whisper on her ear, 
She knew not what ; nor loved slie to be left 
Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. 
What ail'd her then, that ere she enter'd, 

(often 
Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch, 
Fearing to enter: Philip thought he knew: 
Such doubts and fears were common to her 

(state, 
Being with child: but when her child was 

(born. 
Then her new child was as herself renew'd, 
Then the new mother came about herheart. 
Then her good Philip was her all-in-all, 
And that mysterious instinct wholly died. 

And where was Enoch? prosperously 

(sail'd 
The ship ,,Good Fortune," tho' at setting 

(forth 
The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward,shook 
And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext 
She slipt across the summer of the world, 
Then after a long tumble about the Cape 
And frequent interchange of foul and fair. 
She passing thro' the summer world again, 
The breath of heaven came continually 
And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, 
Till silent in her oriental haven. 

There Enoch traded for himself, and 

(bought 
Quaint monsters for the market of those 

(times, 
A gilded dragon, also, for the babes. 

Less lucky her home-voyage: at first in- 

(dced 
Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day, 
Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head 
Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her 

(bows : 
Then follow 'd calms, and then winds varia- 

(ble, 
Then baflling, a long course of them ; and 

(last 
Storm, such as drove her under moonless 

(heavens 



192 



ENOCH AJiDEN. 



Till liard upon the cry of „breakers'' came 
The crash of ruin, and the loss of all 
But Enoch and two others. Half the nio:ht, 
Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken 

(spars, 
These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn 
Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. 

No want was there of human sustenance, 
Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing 

(roots , 
Nor save for pity was it hard to take 
The helpless life so wild that it was tame. 
There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge 
They built, and thatch'd with leaves of 

(palm, a hut, 
Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, 
Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, 
Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. 

For one, the youngest, hardly more than 

(boy. 
Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and 

(wreck. 
Lay lingering out a five-years' death-in-life. 
They could not leave him. After he was 

(gone, 
The two remaining found a fallen stem ; 
And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, 
Eire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell 
Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. 
In those two deaths he read God's warning 

(„wait." 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the 

(lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to 

(Heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of 

(plumes. 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coil'd around the stately stems,andran 
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world. 
All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
He could not see, the kindly human face, 
Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl. 
The league-long roller thundering on the 

(reef, 
The moving whisper of huge trees that 

(branch'd 
And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep 
Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 



Sat often in the seaward-gazing gor^e, 
A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : 
No sail from day to day, but every day. 
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
Among the palms and/erns and precipices ; 
The blaze upon the waters to the east; 
The blase upon his island overhead ; 
The blaze upon the waters to the west ; 
Then the great stars that globed themselves 

(in Heaven, 
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 
The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail. 

There often as he watch'd or seem'd to 

(watch. 
So still, the golden lizard on him paused. 
A phantom made of many phantoms moved 
Before him haunting him, or he himself 
Moved haunting people, things and places 

(known 
Ear in a darker isle beyond the line ; 
The babes, their babble, Annie, the small 

(house, 
The climbing street, the mill, the leafy 

(lanes. 
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, 
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the 

(chill 
November dawns and dewy-glooming 

(downs. 
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, 
And the low moan of leaden-colour'd seas. 

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, 
Tho' faintly, merrily — far and far away — 
He heard the pealing of his parish bells: 
Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up 
Shuddering, and when the beauteous hate- 

(ful isle 
fleturn'd upon him, had not his poor heart 
Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all 

(alone, 
Surely the man had died of solitude. 

Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 
The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 
Year after year. His hopes to see his own. 
And pace the sacred old familiar fields, 
Not yet had perish' d, when his lonely doom 
Came suddenly to an end. Another ship 
(She wanted water) blown by baffling winds. 
Like the Good Fortune , from her destined 

(course, 
Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where sli 

(lay : 



ENOCH ARLEN. 



193 



For since the mate had seen at early dawn 
Across a break on the niist-wreathen isle 
The silent water slipping from the hills, 
They sent a crew that landing burst away 
In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the 

(shores 
With clamour. Downward from his moun- 

(tain gorge 
Stept the long-hair'd long-bearded solitary, 
Brown, looking hardly human, strangely 

(clad. 
Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it 

seem'd. 
With inarticulate rage, and making signs 
They knew not what : and yet heledthe way 
To where the rivulets of sweet water ran; 
And evfcr as he mingled with the crew. 
And heard them talking, his long-bounden 

(tongue 
Was loosen'd, till he made them understand; 
Whom, when their casks were fiU'dthey 

(took aboard •• 
And there the tale he utter'd brokenly, 
Scarce credited at first but more and more, 
Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it : 
And clothes they gave him and free passage 

(home ; 
But oft he work'd among the rest and shook 
His isolation from him. None of these 
Came from his county, or could answer him, 
If question'd aught of what he cared to 

(know. 
And dull the voyage was with long delays, 
The vessel scarce sea-worthy ; bat evermore 
His fancy fled before the lazy wind 
Returning, till beneath a clouded moon 
He like a lover down thro' all his blood 
Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath 
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall: 
And that same morning officers and men 
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves. 
Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it : 
Then moving up the coast they landed 

(him, 
Ev'n in that harbour whencehe sail'd before. 

There Enoch spoke no word to anyone, 
But homeward — home — what home? had 

(he a home? 
His home, he walk'd. Bright was that af- 

(ternoon, 
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either 

(chasm, 
Where either haven open'd on the deeps, 



Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in 

(gray; 
Cut off the length of highway on before, 
And left but narrow breadth to left and right 
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage. 
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped 
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze 
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it 

(down : 
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom ; 
Last, as it seem'd, a greatjmist-blottedlight 
Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 
Then down the long street having slowly 

(stolen. 
His heart foreshadowing all calamity, 
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the 

(home 
Where Annie lived and loved liim, and his 

(babes 
In those far-off seven happy years were born; 
But finding neither light nor murmur there 
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept 
Still downward thinking „dead or dead to 

(me ! " 

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he 

(went, 
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, 
A front of timber-crost antiquity, 
So propt, warm-eaten, ruinously old. 
He thought it must have gone ; but he was 

(gone 
Who kept it; and his widow, Miriam Lane, 
With daily-dwindling profits held the house; 
A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now 
Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 
There Enoch rested silent many days. 

But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous. 
Not let him be, but often breaking in, 
Told him, with other annals of the port. 
Not knowing — Enoch was so brown, so 

(bow'd. 
So broken — all the story of his house. 
His baby's death, her growing poverty, 
How Philip put her little ones to school. 
And kept them in it, his long wooing her, 
Her slow consent, and marriage, and the 

(birth 
Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance 
No shadow past, nor motion: anyone. 
Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale 
Less than the teller: only when she closed 
„Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost" 
He, shaking his gray head pathetically, 

7 



194 



ENOCH ARBEN. 



Repeated muttering „cast away and lost:" 
Again in deeper inward whispers, /lost!" 

But Enoch yearn'd to see her face again ; 
,,lf I might look on her sweet face again 
And know that she is happy." So the thought 
Haunted and harrass'd him, and drove him 

(forth, 
At evening when the dull November day 
Was growing duller twilight, to the hilL 
There he sat down gazing on all below, 
There did a thousand memories roll upon 

(him, 
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by 
The ruddy square of comfortable light, 
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, 
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures 
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes 
Against it, and beats out his weary life. 

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street. 
The latest house to landward ; but behind, 
"With one small gate that open'd on the waste, 
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd: 
And in it throve an ancient evergreen, 
A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk 
Of shingle, and a walk divided it : 
But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and 

(stole 
Up by the wall, behind the yew ; and thence 
That which he better might have shunn'd, if 

(griefs 
Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw. 

For cups and silver on the burnish'd board 
Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: 
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw 
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, 
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees : 
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, 
A later but a loftier Annie Lee, 
Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand 
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring 
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy 

(arms. 
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they 

(laugh'd : 
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 
The mother glancing often toward her babe, 
But turningnow and then to speak with him, 
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, 
And saying that which pleased him, for he 

(smiled. 

Now when the dead man come to life beheld 
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe 



Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, ^ 
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, 
And his own children tall and beautiful, 
And hira, that other, reigning in his place. 
Lord ofhis rights and of his children's love — 
Then he, tho' Meriam Lane had told him all. 
Because things seen are mightier than 

(things heard, 
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, j 

(and fear'd 
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry. 
Which in one moment,like the blast of doom. 
Would shatter all the happiness of the 

(hearth. 

He therefore turning softly like a thief, 
Lest the harsh shingle should grate under- 

(foot. 
And feeling all along the garden-wall, 
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be 

(found, 
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed. 
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door. 
Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 

And there he would have knelt, but that 

(his knees 
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd. 

,/Too hard to bear! why did they take me 

(thence? 
God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou 
That did'st uphold me on my lonely isle, 
Uphold me. Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer ! aid me, give me strength 
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 
My children too ! must I not speak to these? 
They know me not. I should betray myself. 
Never : no father's kiss for me — the girl 
So like her mother, and the boy, my son." 

There speech and thought and nature 

(fail'd a little, 
And he lay tranced, but when he rose and 

(paced 
Back toward his solitary home again, 
All down the long and narrow street he went 
Beating it in upon his weary brain, 
As tho' it were the burthen of a song, 
„ IS ot to tell her, never to let her know." 

He was not all unhappy. His resolve 

Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 

I Prayer from a living source within the will, 

And beating up thro' all tlie bitter world, 



ENOCH 

Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
Kept him a living soul. „This miller's wife" 
He said to Miriam „that you told me of, 
Has she no fear that her first husband 

(lives?" 
„ Ay, ay, poor soul" said Miriam, fear enow ! 
If you could tell her you had seen him dead, 
Why, that would be her comfort;" and he 

(thought 
./After theLord has call'd me she shall know, 
I wait His time" and Enoch set himself, 
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. 
I xilmost to all things could he turn his hand. 
i Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought 
.To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'd 
rAt lading and unlading the tall barks, 
That brought the stinted commerce of those 

(days ; 
Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself: 
Yet since he did but labour for himself, 
Work without hope, there was not life in it 
Whereby the man could live: and as the year 
Roll'd itself round again to meet the day 
When Enoch had return'd, a languor came 
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually 
Weakening the man, till he could do no 

(more, 
But kept the house, Ms chair, and last his 

(bed. 
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully. 
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all. 

For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier 

(hope 
On Enoch thinking „ after I am gone, 
^'hen may she learn I loved her to the last." 
He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said 
„Woman, I have a secret — only swear, 
Before I tell you — swear upon the book 
jS'ot to reveal it, till you see me dead." 
„Dead" clamour'd the good woman „hear 

(him talk ! 
I warrant, man, that we shall bring you 

(round." 
„Swear" added Enoch sternly „on the 

(book." 
And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam 

(swore. 
Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, 
„Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?" 



ARLEN. 



195 



./Know him?" she said ,,Iknewhimfar away 
Ay, ay, T mind him coming down the street; 
Held his head high, and cared for no man, 

(he." 
Slowly and sadly Enoch answer'd her ; 
„His head is low, and no man cares for him. 
I think I have not three days more to live ; 
I am the man." At which the woman gave 
A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry. 
„You Arden, youl nav, — sure he was a 

(foot 
Higher than you be." Enoch said again 
„My God has bow'd me down to what I am; 
My grief and solitude have broken me : 
Nevertheless, know you that I am he 
Who married — but that name has twice 

(been changed — 
I married her who married Philip Ray. 
Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage, 
His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, 
His gazing'in on Annie, his resolve. 
And how he kept it. As the woman heard, 
East flow'd the current of her easy tears, 
While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly 
To rush abroad all round the little haven, 
Proclaiming Enocli Arden and his woes ; 
But awed and promise-bounden she forbore, 
Saying only ,,See your bairns before you go ! 
Eh, let me fetch 'em, xirden," and arose 
Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung 
A moment on her words, but then replied. 

./Woman, disturb me not now at the last, 
But let me hold my purpose till I die. 
Sit down again ; mark me and understand, 
While I have power to speak. I charge you 

(now. 
When you shall see her, tell her that I died 
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her; 
Save for the bar between us, loving her 
As when she laid her head beside my own. 
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw 
So like her mother, that my latest breath 
Was spent in blessing her and praying for 

(her. 
And tell my son that I died blessing him. 
And say to Philip that I blest him too ; 
He never meant us any thing but good. 
But if my children care to see me dead, 
Who hardly knew me living^ let tnem come, 
I am their father; but she must not come, 
Eor my dead face would vex her after-life. 
And now there is but one of all my blood, 
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be : 



19G 



JYLMERS FIELT). 



This hair is iiis: she cut it ofland gave it, 
And I have borne it with me all these years, 
And thought to bear it with me to my grave; 
But now my mind is changed, for I shall 

(see him, 
My babe in bliss : wherefore when I am 

(gone, 
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her : 
It will moreover be a token to her, 
That I am he." 

He ceased; and Miriam Lane 
Made such a voluble answer promising all. 
That once again he roU'd his eyes upon her 
Repeating all he wish'd, and once again 
She promised. 

Then the third night after this, 
WliileEnoch slumher'd motionless and pale, 
And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals, 
. There came so loud a calling of the sea. 
That all the houses in the haven rang. 
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad 
Crying with a loud voice „a sail ! a sail ! 
I am saved ; and so fell back and spoke no 

(more. 

So past the strong heroic soul away. 
And when they buried him the little port 
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral. 

A ELMER'S FIELD. 

1793. 

Dust are our frames ; and, gilded dust, our 

(pride 
Looks only for a moment whole and sound ; 
Like that long-buried body of the king, 
Eound lying with his urns and ornaments. 
Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven, 
Slipt into ashes and was found no more. 

Here is a story which in rougher shape 
Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw 
Sunning himself in a waste field alone — 
Old, and a mine of memories — who had 

(served. 
Long since, a bygone Rector of the place, 
And been himself a part of what he told. 

Sir Aylmer Aylmer that almighty man. 
The county God — in whose capacious hall. 
Hung with a hundred shields, the family 

(tree 
Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king - 
Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the 

(spire. 
Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry- 

(gates 



And swang besides on many a windy sign -[ 
Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head 
Saw from his windows nothing save his 

(own — 
Wliat lovelier of his own had he than her, 
His only child, his Edith, whom he loved 
As heiress and not heir regretfully ? 
But ,/he that marries her marries her name" 
This fiat somewhat soothed himself and 

(wife, ^ 

His wife a faded beauty of the Baths, 
Insipid as the Queen upon a card; 
Her all of thought and bearing hardly raor( 
Than his own shadow in a sickly sun. 

Aland of hops and poppy-mingled corn, 
Little about it stirring save a brook ! 
A sleepy land where under the same wheel 
The same old rut would deepen year by year; 
Where almost all the village had one name ; 
Where Aylmer follow'd Aylmer at the Hall 
«ind Averill Averill at the Rectory 
Thrice over ; so that Rectory and Hall, 
Bound in an immemorial intimacy, 
Were open to each other; tho' to dream 
That Love could bind them closer well had 

(made 
The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up 
With horror, worse than had he heard his 

(priest 

Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men 
Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land. 

And might not Averill, had he will'd it so,1 
Somewhere beneath his own low range of 

(roofs. 
Have also set his many-shielded tree ? 
There was an Aylmer- Averill marriage once, 
When the red rose was redder than itself, 
And York's white rose as red asLancaster's, 
With wounded peace which each had ' 

(prick'd to death. 
„Not proven" Averill said, or laughingly 
„Some other race ofAverills" — prov'n or no. 
What cared he ? what, if other or the same ? 
He lean'd not on his fathers but himself. 
But Leolin, his brother, living oft 
With Averill, and a year or two before 
Call'd to the bar, but ever call'd away 
By one low voice to one dear neighbour- 

(hood, 
Would often, in his walks withEdith, claim 
A distant kinship to the gracious blood 
That shook the hearth of Edith hearin 

(him. 



AILMEWS FIELD. 



197 



Sauguiue lie was ; a but less vivid hue 
Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom 
Flamed in his cheek; and eager eyes, that 

(still 
Tookjoyful note of all things joyfuljbeam'd, 
Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, 
Their best and brightest, when they dwelt 

(on hers, 
Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else. 
But subject to the season or the mood, 
Shone like a mystic star between the less 
And greater glory varying to and fro, 
We know not wherefore; bounteously made. 
And yet so finely, that a troublous touch 
Thinn'd, or would seem to thin her in a day, 
A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. 
And these had been together from the first. 
Leolin's first nurse was, five years after, 

(hers : 
So much the boy foreran; but when his date 
Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he 
(Since Averill was a decad and a half 
His elder, and their parents underground) 
Had tost his ball andflown his kite,ari d roll'd 
His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt 
Against the rush of the air in the prone 

(swing. 
Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged 
Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green 
In living letters, told her fairy-tales, 
Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass 
The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms. 
The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, 
Or from the tiny pitted target blew 
What look'd a fiight of fairy arrows aim'd 
All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes 
For Edith and himself: or else he forged, 
But that was later, boyish histories 
Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, 
Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true 

(love 
Crown'd after trial ; sketches rude and faint, 
But where a passion yet unborn perhaps 
Lay hidden as the music of the moon 
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale. 
And thus together, save for college-times 
Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair 
As ever painter painted, poet sang. 
Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded, grew. 
And more and more, the maiden woman- 

(grown. 
He wasted hours with Averill ; there, when 

(first 
The tented winter-field was broken up 



Into that phalanx of the summer spears 
That soon should wear the garland; there 

(again 
When burr and bine were gather'd; lastly 

(there 
At Christmas; «ver welcome at the Hall, 
On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth 
Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even 
My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid 
jS'o bar between them: dull and self-involved. 
Tall and erect, but bending from his heiglit 
With half-allowing smiles for all the world, 
And mighty courteous in the main — his 

(pride 
Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring — 
He', like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, 
Would care no more for Leolin's walking 

(with her 
Than for his old Newfoundland's, when 

(they ran 
To loose him at the stables, for he rose 
Twofooted at the limit of his chain. 
Roaring to make a third: and how should 

(Love, 
Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance- 

(met eyes 
Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow 
Such dear familiarities of dawn ':' 
Seldom, but when he does, Master of all. 

So these young hearts not knowing that 

(they loved, 
Not sh'e at least, nor conscious of a bar 
Between them, nor by plight or broken ring 
Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, 
Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied 
By Averill : his, a brother's love, that hung 
With wings of brooding shelter o'er her 

(peace 
Might have been other, save for Leolin's — 
Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour 

(by hour 
Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and 

(drank 
The magic cup that fiU'd itself anew. 

A whisper half reveal'd her to herself. 
For out beyond her lodges, where the brook 
Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran 
By sallowy rims, arose the labourers' homes, 
A^frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls 
That dimpling died into each other, huts 
At random scatter'd, each a nest in bloom. 
Her art, her hand, her counsel all had 

(wrought 



198 



JYLMER'S FIELD. 



About them: here Avas one tliat, siimmer- 

(blanch'd, 
Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy 
111 Autuniu, parcel ivy-clad; and here 
The warm-blue breathings of a hidden 

(hearth 
Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle : 
One look'd all rosetree, and another wore 
A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars: 
This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers 
About it ; this,' a milky-way on earth, 
Like visions in the Northern dreamer's 

(heavens, 
A lily-avenue climbing to the doors; 
One,*alniost to the martin-haunted eaves 
A summer burial deep in hollyhocks: 
Each, its own charm; and Edith's ever y- 

(where ; 
And Edith ever visitant with him. 
He but less loved than Edith, of her poor: 
For she — so lowly-lovely and so loving. 
Queenly responsive when the loyal hand 
Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past, 
Isot sowing hedgerow texts and passing by, 
Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height 
That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice 
Of comfort and an open hand of help, 
A splendid presence flatteringthepoorroofs 
Eevered as theirs, but kindlier than them- 

(selves 
To ailing wife or wailing infancy 
Or old bedridden palsy, — was adored ; 
He, loved for her and for himself. A grasp 
Having the.warmthandmuscle of theheart, 
A childly way with children, and a laugh 
Ringing'like proven golden coinage true, 
Were no false passport to that easy realm, 
"Where once with Leolin at her side the girl, 
Isursing a child, and turning to the warmth 
The tender pink live-beaded baby-soles. 
Heard the good mother softly whisper 

(„Bless, 
Godbless'em: marriages are madeinHeaven" 

A flash of semi-jealousy clear'd it to her. 
My lady's Indian kinsman unannounced 
With half a score of swarthy faces came. 
His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly, 
Sear'd by the close ecliptic, was not fair;' 
Eairerhis talk, atonguethatruledthehour, 
Tho' seeming boastful : so when first he 

(dash'd 
Into the chronicle of a deedful day, 
Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy sm'ile 



Ofpatron„Good!raylady'skinsman!good!" 
My lady with her fingers interlock'd, 
And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, 
Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear 
To listen: unawares they flitted off. 
Busying themselves about the flowerage 
That stood from out a stiff brocade in which, 
The meteor of a splendid season, she, 
Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, 
Slept thro' the stately minuet of those days : 
But Edith's eager fancy hurried with him 
Snatch'd thro' flie perilous passes of his life : 
Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye 
Hated him witch a momentary hate. 
Wife-hunting, as the rumour ran, was he : 
I know not, for he spoke not, onlyshower'd 
His oriental gifts on everyone 
And most on Edith : like a storm he came, 
And shook the house, and like a storm lie 
(went. 

Among the gifts he left her (possibly 
He flow'd and ebb'd uncertain, to return 
When others had been tested) there was one 
A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it 
Sprinkled about in gold that branch'd itself 
Fine as ice-ferns on January panes 
Made by a breath. I know not whence at 

(first. 
2s or of what race, the work ; but as he told 
The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves 
He got it ; for their captain after fight, 
His"comrades having fought their last below, 
Was climbing up the valley : at whom he 

(shot: 

Down from the beetling crag to which he 

(clung 
Tumbled the taw^ny rascal at his feet, 
This dagger with him, which when now 

(admired 
By Edith whom his pleasure was to please. 
At once the costly Sahib yielded to her. 

And Leolin, coming after he was gone. 
Tost overall her presents'petulantly: 
And when she show'dthe wealthy scabbard, 

(saying 
„Look what a lovely piece of workmanship!'^ 
Slight was his answer „Well — I care not 

(for it:" 
Then playing with the blade he prick'dhis 

(hand, 
,,A gracious gift to give a lady, this!'' 
,/But would it be more gracious'' ask'd the 

(girl 



AILMER'S FIELB. 



199 



vWere I to give this gift of his to one 
That is no lady?" ,;Gracious? No" said he. 
//Me? — but I cared nor for it. pardon me, 
I seem to be ungraciousness itself. " 
./Take it" she added sweetly ,/tho' his gift j 
For I am more ungracious ev'n than you, 
I care not for it either;'* and he said 
„Why then I love it;" but Sir Aylmerpast, 
And neithet loved nor liked the thing he 
(heard. 

The next day came a neighbour. Blues and 

(reds 
They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he 
^ (thought : 
Then of the latest fox — where started — 

(kiird 
In such a bottom : ,/ Peter had the brush, 
My Peter, first:" and did Sir Aylmer know 
That great pock-pitten fellow had been 

(caught? 
Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand, 
ind rolling as it were the substance of it 
Between his palms a moment up and 

(down — 
,/The birds were warm, the birds were warm 

(upon him ; 
We have him now:" and had Sir Aylmer 

(heard — 
Nay, but he must — the laud was ringing 
' (ofit — 
This blacksmith-bordermarriage — one 

(they knew — 
Raw from the nursery — who could trust 

(a child? 
That cursed France with her egalities ! 
And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially 
With nearing chair and lower'd accent) 
^ (think — 
For people talk'd — that it was wholly wise 
To let that handsome fellow Averill walk 
So freely with his daughter? people talk'd — 
The boy might get a notion into him; 
The girl might be entangled ere she knew. 
Sir Aylmer Aylmer slowly stiffening spoke : 
„The girl and boy, Sir, know their differ- 

(ences!' 
,,/Good^' said his friend „but watch \" and he 

(,/enough, 
More than enough. Sir! I can guard my 

(own." 
They parted,andSirAylmerAylmer watch'd. 

Pale, for on her the thunders of the house 
r Had fallen first, wasJEdith that same night; 



Pale as the Jephta's daughter, a rough piece 
Of early rigid colour, under which 
Withdrawing by the counter door to that 
Which Leolin open'd, she cast back upon 

(him 
A piteous glance, and vanish'd. He, as one 
Caught in a burst of unexpected storm, 
And pelted with outrageous epithets. 
Turning beheld the Powers of the House 
On either side the hearth, indignant; her. 
Cooling her false cheek with a featherfan, 
Him glaring, by his own stale devil spurr'd, 
And, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing 

(hard. 
//Ungenerous, dishonourable, base. 
Presumptuous ! trusted as he was with her, 
The sole succeeder to their wealth, their 

(lands, 
The last remaining pillar of their house, 
The one transmitter of their ancient name, 
Their child." ,/Our child !" ,/Our heiress!" 

(Ours!" for still. 
Like echoes from beyond a hollow, came 
Her sicklier iteration. Last he said 
//Boy, mark me! for your fortunes are to 

(make. 
I swear you shall not make them out of 

(mine. 
Now inasmuch as you have practised on her, 
Perplext her, made her half forget herself, 
Swerve from her duty to herself and us — 
Things in an Aylmer deem'd impossible. 
Far as we track ourselves — I say that 

(this — 
Else I withdraw favour and countenance 
From you and yours for ever — shall you do. 
Sir, when you see her — but you shall not 

(see her — 
No, you shall write, and not to her, but me : 
And you shall say having spoken with me. 
And after look'd into yourself, you find 
That you meant nothing — as indeed you 

(know 
That you meant nothing. Such a match as 

(this ! 
Impossible, prodigious!" These were words, 
As meted by his measure of himself, 
Arguing boundless forbearance: after which, 
AndLeolin's horror-stricken answer, ,/I 
So foul a traitor to myself and her, 
Never oh never," for about as long 
As the wind-hover hangs in balance, paused 
SirAylmer reddening from the storm within. 
Then broke all bonds of courtesy, and crying 



200 



AILMEKS FIEIT). 



„Boy, should I find you by my doors again. 
My men shall lash you from them like a 

(dog; 
Hence \" with a sudden execration drove 
The footstool from before him, and arose; 
So, stammering „ scoundrel" out of theet 

(that ground 
As in a dreadful dream, while Leolin still 
Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man 
FoUow'd, and under his own lintel stood 
Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face 
Meet for the reverence of the hearth, but 

(now, 
Beneath a pale and uuimpassion'd moon, 
Vext with unworthy madness, and deform'd. 

Slowly and conscious of the rageful eye 
That watch'd him, till he heard the pon- 

(derous door 
Close, crashing with long echoes thro' the 

(land, 
Went Leolin; then, his passions all in flood 
And masters of his motion, furiously 
Down thro' the bright lawns to his brother's 

(ran. 
And foam'd away his heart at Averill's ear: 
Whom Averill solaced as he might, amazed : 
The man was his, had been his father's, 

(friend : 
He must have seen, himselfhadseenit long; 
He must have known, himself had known: 

(besides, 
He never yet had set his daughter forth 
Here in the woman-markets of the west. 
Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold . 
Some one, he thought, had slander'd Leolin 

(to him. 
//Brother, for I have loved you more as son 
Than brother, let me tell you: I myself — 
What is their pretty saying V jilted, is it? 
Jilted I was : 1 say it for your peace, 
Pain'd, and, as bearing in myself the shame 
The woman should have borne, humiliated 
1 lived for years a stunted sunless life; 
Till after our good parents past away 
Watching your growth, I seem'd again to 

(grow. 
Leolin, 1 almost sin in envying you: 
The very whitest lamb in all my fold 
Loves you; I know her: the worst thought 

(she has 
Is whiter even than her pretty hand : 
She must prove true: for, brother, where 

(two fight 



The strongest wins, and trutli and love arc 

(strength. 
And you are happy : let her parents be.'' 

But Leolin cried out the more upon 

(them — 
Insolent, brainless, heartless! heiresSj 

(wealth, 
Their wealth, their heiress! wealth enough 

(was theirs 
For twenty matches. Were he lord of this, 
Why twenty boys and girls should marryj 

(on it. 
And forty blest ones bless him, and himself 
Be wealthy still, ay wealthier. He believed^ | 
This filthy marriage-hindering Mammon" 

(made 
The harlot of the cities : nature crost 
Was mother of the foul adulteries 
That saturate soul with body. Name, too ! 

(name. 
Their ancient name! they Mi<//in3e proud: 

(its worth 
Was being Edith's. Ah how pale she had 

(look'd. 
Darling, to-night! they must have rated her 
Beyond all tolerance. These old pheasant 

(lords. 
These partridge-breeders of a thousand 

years. 
Who had mildew'dintheirthousands, doing 

(nothing 
Since Egbert — why, the greater their dis- 

(grace! 
Eall back upon a name! rest , rot in that! 
Not keep it noble, make it nobler? fools. 
With such a vantage-ground for nobleness! 
Heliad known a man, a quintessence of man, 
The life of all — who madly loved — and he, ^ 
Thwarted by one of these old father-fools, 
Had rioted his life out, and made-an end. 
He would not do it ! her sweet face and faith 
Held him from that : but he had powers, he 

(knew it: 
Back would he to his studies, make a name, 
Name, fortune too: the world should ring 

(of him 
To shame these mouldy Aylmers in their 

(graves : 
Chancellor, or what is greatest would he 

(be — 
,,0 brother, I am grieved to learn your 

(grief — 
' Give me my fling, and let me say my say." ( 



AFLMER'S FIELD. 



201 



At which, like one that sees his own 

(excess, 
And easily forgives it as his own. 
He laugh'd ; and then was mute : but pre- 

(sently 
Wept like a storm : and honest Averill seeing, 
How low his brother's mood had fallen, 

(fetch'd 
His richest beeswing from a binn reserved 
For banquets, praised the waning red, and 

(told 
The vintage — when this Aylmer came of 

(age — 
Then drank and past it ; till at length the 
:t (two, 
Tho' Leoliu flamed and fell again, agreed 
That much allowance musl; be made for 
I (men. 

i After an angry dream this kindlier glow 
j Faded with morning, but his purpose held. 

I Yet once by night again the lovers met, 

' A perilous meeting under the tall pines 
That darken'd all the northward of her Hall, 
Him, to her meek and modest bosom prest 
In agony, she promised that no force, 
Persuasion, no, nor death could alter her: 
He, passionately hopefuller, would go, 
Labour for his own Edith, and return 
In such a sunlight of prosperity 

I He should not be rejected. „Write to me! 

I They loved me, and because I love theii child 
They hate me: there is war between us, 

(dear. 
Which breaks all bonds but ours ; we must 

(remain 
Sacred to one another.'' So they talk'd. 
Poor children, for their comfort : the wind 

(blew ; 
The rain of heaven, and their own bitter 

(tears. 
Tears, and the careless rain of heaven mixt 
Upon their faces, as they kiss'd each other 
In darkness, and above them roar'd the pine. 

So Leolin went ; and as we task ourselves 
To learn a language known but smatteringly 
In phrases here and there at random, toil'd 
Mastering the lawless science of our law. 
That codeless myriad of precedent. 
That wilderness of single instances. 
Thro' which a few, by wit or fortune led. 
May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. 
The jests, that flash'd about the pleader's 

(room, 



Lightning of the hour, the pun, scurrilous 

(tale, — 
Old scandals buried now seven decads deep 
In other scandals that have lived and died, 
And left the living scandal that shall die — 
Were dead to him already; bent as he was 
To make disproof of scorn, and strong in 

(hopes, 
And prodigal of all brain-labour he. 
Charier of sleep, and wine, and exercise. 
Except when for a breathing-while at eve, 
Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran 
Beside the river-bank : and then indeed 
Harder the times were, and the lands of 

(power 
AYere bloodier, and the according hearts of 

(men 
Seem'd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, 
Which fann'd the gardens of that rival rose 
Yet fragrant in a heart remembering 
His formertalks with Edith,onhimbreathed 
Ear purelier in his rushings to and fro, 
xifter his books, to flush his blood with air 
Then to his books again. My lady's cousin. 
Half-sickening of his pension'd afternoon. 
Drove in upon the student once or twice, 
llan a Malayan muck against the times, 
Had golden hopes for France and all man- 

(kind, 
Answer'd all queries touching those at home 
With a heaved shoulder and a saucy smile, 
And fain had haled him out into the world, 
And air'd him there: his nearer friend would 

(say 
„ Screw not the chord too sharply lest it 

(snap." 
Then left alone he pluck'd her dagger forth 
From where his worldless heart had kept it 

(warm. 
Kissing his vows upon it like a knight. 
And wrinkled benchers often talk'd of him 
Approvingly, and prophesied his rise: 
For heart,! think, help'd head: her letters 

(too, 
Tho' far between and coming fitfully 
Like broken music ; written as she found 
Or made occasion, being strictly watch'd, 
Charm'd him thro' every labyrinth till he 

(saw 
An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him. 

But they that cast her spirit into flesh, 
Her worldly-wise begetters, plagued them- 
(selves 



302 



AYLMERS FIELD. 



To sell lier, those good parents, for her good. 
Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth 
Might lie within their compass, him they 

(lured 
Into their net made x)leasant by the baits 
Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo. 
So month by month the noise about their 

(doors, 
And distant blaze of those dull banquets, 

(made 
The nightly wirer of their innocent hare 
Falter before he took it. All in vain. 
Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return'd 
Leolin's rejected rivals from their suit 
So often, that the folly taking wings 
Slipt o'er those lazy limits down the wind 
With rumour, and became in other fields 
A mockery to the yeomen over ale, 
And laughter to their lords : but those at 

(home, 
As hunters round a hunted creature draw 
The cordon close and closer toward the 

(death, 
IVarrow'd her goings out and comings in ; 
Forbad her first the house of Averill, 
Then closed her access to the wealthier 

(farms, 
Last from her own home-circle of the poor 
They barr'd her: yet she bore it: yet her cheek 
Kept colour : wondrous ! but, mystery ! 
What amulet drew her down to that old oak, 
So old, that twenty years before, a part 
Falling had let appear the brand of John — 
Once grovelike, each huge arm a tree, but 

(now 
The broken base of a black tower, a cave 
Of touchwood, with a single flourishing 

(spray. 
There the manorial lord too curiously 
Eaking in that millennial touchwood-dust 
Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove ; 
Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read 
Writhing a letter from his child, for which 
Came at the moment Leolin's emissary, 
A crippled lad, and coming turn'd to fly, 
But scared with threats of jail and halter 

(gave 
To him that fluster'd his poor parish wits 
The letter which he brought, and swore be- 

(sides 
To play their go-between as heretofore 
IS'or let them know tliemselvesbetray'd; and 

(then, 
Soul-stricken at their kindness to him, went 



Hating his own lean heart and miserable . 

Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream 
The father panting woke, and oft, as dawn 
Aroused the black republic on his elms. 
Sweeping the frotlifly from the fescue 

(brush'd 
Thro' the dim meadow toward his treasure- 

(trove, 
Seized it, took home, and to my lady, — who 

(made 
A downward crescent of her minion mouth, 
Listless in all despondence, — read; and tore, 
As if the living passion symboFd there 
Were living nerves to feel the rent; and 

(burnt, 
Now chafing at his own great self defied, 
Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of 

(scorn 
In babyisms, and dear diminutives 
Scatter'd all over the vocabulary 
Of such a love as like a chidden child, 
After much wailing, hush'd itself at last 
Hopeless of answer : then tho' Averill wrote 
And bad him with good heart sustain liim- 

(self — 
All would be well — the lover heeded not, 
But passionately restless came and went, 
And rustling once at night about the place. 
There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt. 
Raging return'd : nor was it well for her 
Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines, 
Watch 'd even there ; and one was set to 

(watch 
The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch'd them 

(all, 
Yet bitterer from his readings: onceindeed, 
Warm'd with his wines, or taking pride in 

(her. 
She look'd so sweet, he kiss'd her tenderly 
Not knowing what possess'dhim: that one 

(kiss 
Was Leolin's one strong rival upon earth : 
Seconded, for my lady follow'd suit, 
Seem'd hope's returning rose: and then 

(ensued 
A Martin's summer of his faded love, 
Or ordeal by kindness; after this 
He seldom crost his child without a sneer ; 
The mother flow'd in shallower acrimonies: 
Never one kindly smile, one kindly word : 
So that the gentle creature shut from all 
Her charitable use, and face to face 
With twenty months of silence, slowly lost 



AYLMJER'S FIELB. 



208 



Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life. 
Last, some low fever ranging round to spy 
The weakness of a people or house, 
Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or 

(men, 
Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt — 
Save Christ as we believe him — found the 

(girl 
And flung her down upon a couch of fire, 
Where careless of the household faces near, 
And crying upon the name of Leolin, 
She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past. 

Star to star vibrates light : may soul to 

(soul 
' Strike thro' a finer element of her own ? 
So, — from afar, — touch as at once ? or 

(why 
That night, that moment, when she named 

(his name,- 
Did the keen shriek ,/yes love, yes Edith, 

(yes," 
Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers 

(woke, 
And came upon him half-arisen from sleep, 
With a weird bright eye, sweating and 

(trembling. 
His hair as It were crackling into flames, 
His body half flung forward in pursuit. 
And his long arms stretch'd as to grasp a 

(flyer: 
Nor knew he wherefore hehad made the cry ; 
And being muck befool'd and idioted 
By the rough amity of the other, sank 
As into sleep again. The second day. 
My lady's Indian kinsman rushing in, 
A breaker of the bitter news from home, 
Found a dead man, a letter edge with death 
Beside him, and the dagger which himself 
■ Gave Edith, redden'd with no bandit's blood: 
„rrom Edith'' was engraven on 1;he blade. 

Then Averill went and gazed upon his 

(death. 
And when he came again, his flock believ- 

(ed — 
Beholding how the years which are not 

(Time's 
Had blasted him — that many thousand 

(days 
Were dipt by horror from his term of life. 
Yet the sad mother, for the second death 
Scarce touch'd her thro' that nearness of 

(the first, 
And being need to find her pastor texts, 



Sent to the harrow'd brother, praying him 
To speak before the people of her child, 
And fixt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose : 
Autumn'smocksunshineofthefaded woods 
W^as all the life of it ; for hard on these, 
A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens 
Stifled and cliill'd at once : but every roof 
Sent out a listener : many too had known 
Edith among the hamlets round, and since 
The parents harshness and the hapless loves 
And double death were widely murmur'd, 

(left 
Their own gray tower, or plain-faced taber- 

(nacle, 
To hear him ; all in mourning these, and 

(those 
W^ith blots of it about them, ribbon, glove 
Or kerchief- while the church, — one night, 

(except 
Eor greenish glimmerings thro' the lancets, 

( — made 
Still paler the pale head of him, who tower'd 
Above them, with his hopes in either grave. 

Long o'er his bent brows linger'd Averill, 
His face magnetic to the hand from which 
Livid he pluck'd it forth, and labour'd thro' 
His brief prayer-prelude, save the verse 

(„Behold, 
Your house is left unto you desolate!" 
But lapsed into so long a pause again 
As half amazed half frighted all his flock; 
Then from his height and loneliness of 

(grief 
Bore down in flood, and dash'd his angry 

(heart 
Against the desolations of the world. 

Never since our bad earth became one sea, 
Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud, 
And all but those who knew the living 

(God — 
Eight that were left to make a purer 

(world — 
When since had flood, fire, earthquake, 

(thunder, wrought 
Such waste and havock as the idolatries, 
Which from the low light of morality 
Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of 

(Heavens, 
And worshipt their own darkness as the 

(Highest? 
,/Gash thyself, priest, and honour thy ])rute 

(Baal, 
And to thy worst self sacrifice thyself, 



304 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



For with thy worst self hast thou clothed 

(thy God> 
Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baiil. 
The babe shall lead the lion. Surely now 
The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. 
Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine 

(own lusts! — 
Xo coarse and blockish God of acreage 
Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to — 
Thy God is far diffused in noble groves 
An*d princely halls, and farms, and flowing 

(lawns, 
And heaps of living gold that daily grow, 
And title-scrolls and gorg.^ous heraldries. 
In such a shape dost thou behold thy God. 
Thou wilt not gash thy flesh for Aiwi ; for 

(thine 
Fares richly, in fine linen, not a hair 
Kuffled upon the scarfskin, even while 
The deathless ruler of thy dying house 
Is wounded to the death that cannot die ; 
And tho' thou numberest with the followers 
Of One who cried /leave all and follow me." 
Thee therefore with His light about thy feet. 
Thee with His message ringing in thine 

(ears. 
Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from 

(Heaven, 
Born of a village girl, carpenter's son, 
Wonderful, Prince of peace, theMighty God, 
Count the more base idolater, of the two ; 
Crueller :-as not passing thro' the fire 
Bodies, but souls — thy children's — thro' 

(the smoke, 
The blight of low desires — darkening thine 

(own 
To thine own likeness; or if one of these. 
Thy better born unhappily from thee. 
Should, as by miracle, grow straight and 

(fair — 
I "riends, I was bid to speak of such a one 
By those who most have cause to sorrow for 

(her — 
Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well. 
Fairer than Buth among the fields of corn. 
Fair as theAngel.'that said „hail" she seem'd, 
Who entering fiil'd the house with sudden 

(light. 
For so minfe own was brighten'd: where 

(indeed 
The roof so lowly but that beam of Heaven 
Dawn'd sometime thro' the doorway? whose 

(the babe 
Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, 



Warm'd at her bosom ? The poor child of 

(shame. 
The common care whom no one cared for, 

(leapt 
To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart, 
As with the mother he had never known, 
In gambols ; for her fresh and innocent eyes 
Had such a star of morning in their blue. 
That all neglected places of the field 
Broke into nature's music when they saw 

(her. 
Low was her voice,but won mysterious way 
Thro' the seal'd ear to which a louder one 
Was all but silence — free of alms her 

hand — 
The hand that robed your cottage- walls ' 

(with flowers 
Has often toil'd to clothe your little ones f 
How often placed upon the sick man's brow 
Cool'd it,or laid his feverous pillow smooth! 
Had you one sorrow and she shared it not? 
One burthen and she would not lighten it ? 
One spiritual doubt she did not soothe? 
Or when some heat of difference sparkled 

(out, 
How sweetly would she glide between your 

(wraths, 
And steal you from each other! for she walk'd 
Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love, 
Who still'd the rolling wave of Galilee 1 
And one — of him I w^as not bid to speak — 
Was always with her, whom you also knew. 
Him too you loved, for he was worthy love. 
And these had been together from the first ; 
They might have been together till the last. 
Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely 

(tried, 
May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt, 
Without the captain's knowledge: hope 

(with me. 
Whose shame is that, if he went hence with 

(shame? 
Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these 
I cry to vacant chairs and widow'd walls, 
'My house is left unto me desolate.' 

While thus he spoke, his hearers wept ; 

(but some. 
Sons of the glebe, with other frowns thau 

(those 
That knit themselves for summer shadow, 

(scowl'd 
At their f-; . at lord. He, when it seem'd he . 

(saw f 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



205 



No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but 

(fork'd 
Of the near storm, and aiming at his head. 
Sat anger-charm'd frow sorrow, soldierlike, 
Erect: but when the preacher's cadence 

(iiow'd 
Softening thro' all the gentle attributes 
Of his lost child, the wife, who watch'd his 

(face. 
Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth; 
And „0 pray God that he hold up" she 

(thought 
„0 surely I shall shame myself and him." 

„Nor yours the blame — for who beside 

(your hearths 
Can take her place — if echoing me your cry 
'Our house is left unto us desolate?' 
But thou, thou that killest, had'st thou 

(known, 
thou that stonest, had'st thou under- 

(stood 
The things belonging to thy peace and ours ! 
Is there no prophet but the voice that calls 
Doom upon kings, or in the waste 'Repentr' 
Is not our own child on the narrow way. 
Who down to those that saunter in the broad 
Cries 'come up hither,' as a prophet to us? 
Is there no stoning save with flint and rock ? 
Yes, as the dead we weep for testify — 
No desolation but by sword and fire? 
Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself 
Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss. 
Give me your prayers, for he is past your 

(prayers, 
Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. 
But I that thought myself long-suffering, 

(meek, 
Exceeding 'poor in spirit' — how the words 
Have twisted back upon themselves, and 

(mean 
Vileness, we are grown so proud — I wisli'd 

(my voice 
A rushing tempest of the wrath of God 
To blow these sacrifices thro' the world — 
Sent like the twelve-divided concubine 
To inflame the tribes: but there — out yon- 

(der — earth 
Lightens from her own central Hell — 

(there 
The red fruit of an old idolatry — 
The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast. 
They cling together in the ghastly sack — 
The land all shambles — naked marriages 



Elash from the bridge, and ever murder'd 

(France, 
By shores that darken with the gatherina; 

(wolf, 
Euns in a river of blood to the sick sea. 
Is this a time to madden madness then? 
Was this a time for these a flaunt their pride? 
May Pharaoh's darkness, folds as dense as 

(those 
Which hid the Holiest from the people's eyes 
Ere the great death, shroud this great sin 

(from all ! 
Doubtless our narrow world must canvass 

(it: 

rather pray for those and pity them, 
Who thro' their own desire accomplish'd 

(bring 
Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the, 

(grave — 
Who broke the bond which they desired to 

(break. 
Which else had link'd their race with times 

(to come — 
Who wove coarse webs to snare her purity, 
Grossly contriving their dear daughter's 

(good — 
Poor souls, and knew not what they did, but 

(sat 
Ignorant, devising their own daughter's 

(death! 
May not that earthly chastisement suffice? 
Have not our love and reverence left them 

(bare ? 
Will not another take their heritage ? 
Will there be children's laughter in their hall 
For ever and for ever, or one stone 
Left on another, or is it a light thing 
That I their guest, their host, their ancient 

(friend, 

1 made by these the last of all my race 
Must cry to these the last of theirs, as cried 
Christ ere His agony to those that swore 
Not by the temple but the gold, and made 
Their own traditions God,and slew the Lord, 
And left their memories a world's curse — 

('Behold, 
Your house is left unto you desolate?' " 

Ended he had not,but she brook'd no more: 
Long since her heart had,beat remorselessly. 
Her crampt-up sorrow pain'd her, and a 

(sense 
Of meanness in her unresisting life. 
^ Then their eyes vext her : for on entering 



206 



SEA DREAMS. 



He had cast the curtains oftheir seat aside- ] And where the two contrived their daugh" 



Black velvet of the costliest — she herself 
Had seen to that : fain had she closed them 

(now, 
Yet dared not stir to do it, only near'd 
Her husband inch by inch, but when she 

(laid, 
Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veil'd 
His face with the other, and at once, as falls 
A creeper when the prop is broken, fell 
The woman shrieking at his feet, and 

(swoon'd. 
Then her own people bore along the nave 
Her pendent hands, and narrow meagre face 
Seam'd with the shallow cares of fifty years : 
And her the Lord of all the landscape round 
Ev'n to its last horizon, and of all 
Who peer'd at him so keenly, follow'd out 
Tall and erect, but in the middle aisle 
Reel'd, as a footsore ox in crowded ways 
Stumbling across the market to his death, 
Unpitied ; for he groped as blind, and seem'd 
x^lways about to fall, grasping the pews 
And oaken iinials till he touch'd the door; 
Yet to the lychgate, where his chariot stood. 
Strode from the porch, tall and erect again. 

But nevermore did either pass the gate 
Save under pall with bearers. In one mouth, 
Thro' weary and yet ever wearier hours, 
The childless mother went to seek her child ; 
And when he felt the silence of his house 
About him, and the change and not the 

(change, 
And those fixt eyes of painted ancestors 
Staring for ever from their gilded walls 
On him their last descendant, his own head 
Began to droop, to fall ; the man became 
Imbecile; his one word was „desolate;" 
Dead for two years before his death was he ; 
But when the second Christmas came, es- 

(caped 
His keepers, and the silence which he felt. 
To find a deeper in the narrow gloom 
By wife and child'; nor wanted at his end 
The dark retinue reverencing death 
At golden thresholds; nor from tender 

(hearts. 
And those who sorrow'd o'er avanish'drace. 
Pity, the violet on the tyrant's grave. • 
Then the great Hall was wholly broken 

rdown, 
And the broad woodland parcell'd into 

(farms; 



(ter's good. 
Lies the hawk's cast, the mole has made his 

(run, 
The hedgehog underneath the plantain 

(bores. 
The rabbit fondles his own harmless face, 
The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel 

(there 
Follows the mouse, and all is open field. 

SEA DREAMS. 

A CITY clerk, but gently born and bred; 
His wife,an unknown artist's orphan child - 
One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years^ 

(old; 
They, thinking thather clear germandereye 
Droopt in the giant-factoried" city-gloom, 
Came, with a month's leave given them, to 

(the sea: 
For which his gains were dock'd, however 

(small: 
Small were his gains, and hard his work ; 

(besides. 
Their slender household fortunes (for the 

(man 
Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift. 
Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep : 
And oft, when sitting all alone, his face 
Would darken, as he cursed his credulous- 

(ness. 
And that one unctuous mouth which lured 

(him, rogue. 
To buy strange shares in some Peruvian 

(mine. 
Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd 

(a coast. 
All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave, 
At close of day ; slept, woke, and went the • 

(next. 
The Sabbath, pious variers from the church. 
To chapel ; where a'heated pulpiteer, 
Not preaching simple Christ to simple men, 
Announced the coming doom, and fulmi- 

(nated 
Against the scarlet woman and her creed : 
For sideways up he swung his arms, and 

(shriek'd" 
„Thus,thus with violence,'^ ev'n as if he held 
The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself 
Were that great Angel ;, /Thus with violence 
Shall Babylon be cast into the sea ; 
Then comes the close." The gentle-hearted 

(wife 



SEA DREAMS. 



207 



Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world ; 
He at his own: but when the wordy storm 
Had ended, forth they came and paced the 

(shore, 
Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves. 
Drank the large air and saw, but scarce be- 

(lieved 
(The sootflake of so many a summer still 
Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the 

(sea. 
So now on sand they walk'd, and now on 

(cliff, 
Lingering about the thymy promontories, 
Till all the sails were darken 'd in the west, 
And rosed in the east : then homeward and 

(to bed : 
Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 
Haunting a holv text, and still to that 
Returning, as tke bird returns, at night, 
,,Let not the sun go down upon your 

(wrath," 
Said, „Love, forgive him:" but he did not 



And silenced by that silence lay the wife, 
Remembering her dear Lord who died for all, 
And musing on the little lives of men, 
And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

But while the two were sleeping, a full 

(tide 
Rose with ground-swell, which, on the fore- 

(most rocks 
Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea- 

(smoke, 
And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and 

(fell 
In vast sea-cataracts — ever and anon 
Dead claps of thunder from within the 

(cliffs 
Heard thro' the living roar. At this the 

(babe, 
Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd 

(and woke 
The motl.ier, and the father suddenly cried, 
„A wreck, a wreck !" then turn'd and, 

(groaning said, 

„Forgive! How many will say, 'forgive,' 

(and find 
A sort of absolution in the sound 
To hate a little longer ! i!vo ; the sin 
That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 
Is it so true that second thoughts are best? 
ISot first, and third, which are a riper first? 



Too ripe, too late ! they come too late for use. 
Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast 
Something divine to warn them of their 

(foes : 
And such a sense, when first I fronted him, 
Said, 'trust him not;' but after, when I came 
To know him more, I lost it, knew him less ; 
Fought with what seem'd my own uncha- 

(rity ; 
Sat at his table; drank his costly wines ; 
Made more and more allowance for his talk ; 
Went further, fool! and trusted him with 

(all, 
All my poor scrapings from a dozen years 
Of dust and deskwork : there is no such 

(mine, 
None ; but a golf of ruin, swallowing gold, 
iS^ot making. Ruin'd ! ruin'd ! the sea roars 
Ruin : a fearful night !" 

„]S'ot fearful ; fair," 
Said the good wife, ,,if every starin heaven 
Can make it fair: you do but hear the tide. 
Had you ill dreams ?" 

„0 yes," he said, „I dream'd 
Of such a tide swelling toward the land, 
And I from out the boundless outer deep 
Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one 
Of those dark caves that run beneath the 

(cliffs. 
I thought the motion of the boundles deep 
Bore through the cave, and I was heaved 

(upon it 
In darkness: then I saw one lovely star 
Larger and larger. ,;What a world," I 

(thought, 
„To live in!" but in moving on I found 
Only the landward exit of the cave, 
Bright with the sun upon the stream 

(beyond: 
And near the light a giant woman sat. 
All over earthy ; like a piece of earth, 
A pickaxe in her hand: then out I slipt 
Into a land all sun and blossom, trees 
As high as heaven, and every bird that sings : 
And here the night-light flickering in my 

(eyes 
Awo'keme." 

'That was then your dream." she said, 
„lsot sad, but sweet," 

„So sweet, I lay,^' said he, 
,, And mused upon it, drifting up the stream 
In fancy, till I slept again, and pieced 
The broken vision ; for I dream'd that still 
The motion of the great deep bore me on, 



208 



SEA BREAMS. 



Aud that the woman walk'd upon tlie brink: 
I wonder'd at her strength, and ask'd her 

(of it: 
'It came/ she said, 'by working in the 

(mines:" 

then to ask her of my shares, I thought ; 
And ask'd ; but not a word ; she shook her 

(head. 
Aud then the motion of the current ceased, 
And there was rolling thunder; aud we 

(reach'd 
A mountain, like a wall of burs and thorns; 
But she with her strong feet up the steep 

(hill 
Trod out a path: I follow'd ; and at top 
She pointed seaward : there a fleet of glass, 
That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me. 
Sailing along before a gloomy cloud 
That not one moment ceased to thunder, 

(past 
In sunshine :right across its track there lay, 
Down in the water, a long reef of gold. 
Or what seem'd gold : and I was glad at 

(first 
To think that in our often-ransanck'd world 
Still so much gold was left; and then I 

(fear'd 
Lest the gay navy there should splinter 

(on it, 
And fearing waved my arm to warn them 

(off; 
An idle signal, for the brittle fleet 
(I thought I could have died to save it) 

(near'd, 
Touch'd clink'd, and clash 'd, and vanish'd 

(and I woke, 

1 )ieard the clash so clearly. Now I see 

My dream was Life; the woman honest 

(Work; 
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass 
Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold." 

//Nay," said the kindly wife to comfort 

(him, 
,/You raised your arm, you tumbled down 

(and broke 
The glass with little Margaret's medicine in 

(it; 
And, breaking that, you made and broke 

(your dream : 
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks." 

;,Xo trifle," groan'd the husband ; „yester- 
(day 
met him suddenly in the street, and ask'd 



That which I ask'd the woman in my dream. 
Like her, he shook his head. 'Show' me the 

(books!* 
He dodged me with a long and loose account. 
'The books, the books !' but he, he eould not 

(wait, 
Bound on a matter he of life and death : 
When the great Books (see Daniel seven and 

ten) 
Were open'd, I should find he meant me 

(well; 
And then began to bloat himself, and ooze 
All over with the fat affectionate smile 
That makes the widow lean, 'My dearest 

(friend. 
Have faith, have faith! We live by faith,' 

(said he ; 
'And all things work together for the good 
Of those' — it makes me sick to quote him — 

(last 
Gript my hand hard, and with God-bless- 

(you went. 
I stood like one that had received a blow : 
I found a hard friend in his loose accounts, 
A loose one in the hard grip of his hand, 
A curse in his God-bless-you : then my eyes 
Pursued him down the street, and far away. 
Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, 
Eead rascal in the motions of his back, 
And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee." 

,/Was he so bound, poor soul?" said the 

(good wife ; 
„So are we all: but do not call him, love, 
Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, 

(forgive. 
His gain is ]oss; ]he that wrongs his 

(friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
A silent court of justice in his breast, 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd : 
And that drags down his life: then comes 

(what comes 
Hereafter : and he meant, he said he meant, 
Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you 

(well. 

,/With all his conscience and one eye 

(askew' — 
Love let me quote these lines, that you may 

(learn 
A man is likewise counsel for himself, 
Too often, in that silent court of yours — 
'With all his conscience and one eye askew. 



SEA BREJMS. 



209 



So false, he partly took liimselJ: for true; 
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was 

(diy, 

Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his 

(eye; 
WhOi never naming God except for gain, 
So never took that useful name in vain ; 
Mad3 Him his catspaw and the Cross his 

(teol, 
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and 

(fool; 
Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he 

(forged, 
And snakelike slimed his victim ere he 

(gorged; 
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest 
Arising, did his holy oily best, 
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Hea- 

(ven, 
To spread the Word by which himself had 

(thriven.' 
How like you this old satire?" 

//Kay," she said, 

,,I loathe it : he had never kindly heart, 
Nor ever cared to better his own kind, 
Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. 
But will you hear my dream, for I had one 
That altogether went to music ? Still 
It awed me." 

Then she told it, having dream'd 
Of that same coast. 

„ — But round the North, a light, 
'A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapour, lay, 
And ever in it a low musical note 
Swell'd up and died ; and, as it swell'd, a 

(ridge 
Of breaker issued from the belt, and still 
Grew with the growing note, and when the 

(note 
Had reach'd a thunderous fullness, on those 

(cliffs 
Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as 

(that 
Living within the belt) whereby she saw 
That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no 

(more, 
But huge cathedral fronts of every age, 
Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see. 
One after one : and then the great ridge drew 
Lessening to the lessening music, back, 
And past into the belt and swell'd again 
Slowly to music : ever when it broke 
The statues, king or saint, or founder fell : 
Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left 



Came men and women in dark clusters 

(round. 
Some crying, 'Set them up ! they shall not 

(fall !' 
And others 'Let them lie,for they have fall'n. 
And still they strove and wrangled: and she 

(grieved 
In her strange dream, she knew not why, to 

(find 
Their wildest wailings never out of tune 
With that sweet note; and ever as their 

(shrieks 
Ban highest up the gamut, that great wave 
Eeturning, while none mark'd it, on the 

(crowd 
Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd 

(their eyes 
Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept 

(away 
The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone. 
To the waste deeps together. 

„Then I fixt 
My wistful eyes on two fair images. 
Both crown'd with stars and high among 

(the stars, — 
The Virgin Mother standing with her child 
High upon one of those darkminster-fronts- 
Till she began to totter, and the child 
Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry 
Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I 

(woke, 
And my dream awed me: — well — but what 

(are dreams ? 
Yourscamebutfromthebreakingof aglass, 
And mine but from the crying of a child." 

„Child? No!" said he, „but this tide's roar, 

(and his, 
Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, 
And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms 
(Altho' I grant but little music there) 
Went both to make your dream: but if there 

(were 
A music harmonizing our wild cries. 
Sphere-music such as that you dream'd 

(about, 
Why, that would make our passions far too 

(like 
The discords dear to the musician. No — 
One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns 

(of heaven: 
True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune 
With nothing but the Devil \" 

-/True' indeed ! 



210 



THE GRANDMOTHER. 



One of our town, but later by an hour 
Here tlian ourselves, spoke with me on the 

(shore; 
While you were running down the sands, 

(and made 
The dimpled flounce ofthe sea-furbelow flap, 
Good man, to please the child. She brought 

(strange news. 
Why were you silent when I spoke to-night? 
I had set my heart on your forgiving him 
Before you knew. We must forgive the dead." 

„Dead! who is dead?" 

„The man your eye pursued. 
A little after you had parted with him. 
He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease." 

„Dead? he? of heart-disease? what heart 

(had he 
To die of? dead!" 

„ Ah, dearest, if there be 
A devil in man, there is an angel too. 
And if he did that wrong you charge him 

(with, 
His angel broke his heart. But your rough 

(voice 
(You spoke so loud) has roused the child 

(again 
Sleep, little birdie, sleep ! will she not sleep 
Without her 'little birdie?' well then, sleep, 
And I will sing you 'birdie.' " 

Saying this, 
The woman half turn'd round from him she 

(loved, 
Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the 

(night 



Her other, found (for it was close beside) 
And half embraced the basket cradle-head 
With one soft arm, which, like the piiant 

(bough 
That moving moves the nest and nestling, 

(sway'd 
The cradle, while she sang this baby song, -. 

What does little birdie say 

In her nest at peep of day!? 

Let me fly, says little birdie. 

Mother, let me fly away. 

Birdie, rest a little longer, 

Till the little wings are stronger. 

So she rests a little longer, 

Then she flies away. 

What does little baby say, 

In lier bed at peep of day"? 

Baby says, like little birdie, 

Let me rise and fly away. 

Baby, sleep a little longer. 

Till the little limbs are stronger. 

If she sleeps a little longer, 

Baby too shall fly away. 
„She sleeps -. let us too, let all evil, sleep. 
He also sleeps — another sleep than ours. 
He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear, 
And I shall sleep the sounder !" 

Then the man, 
„His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. 
Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: 
I do forgive him!" 

„Thanks, my love," she said, 
„Your own will be the sweeter," and they 
(slept. 



THE GRANDMOTHER. 
I. 

And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? 
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. 
And Willy's wife has written: she never was overwise, 
Never the wife for Willy: he wouldn't take my advice. 

II. 
For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save. 
Hadn't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave. 
Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for one. 
Eh! — but he wouldn't hear me — and Willy, you say, is gone. 

III. 
Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the flock; 
Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a rock. 
„Here's a leg for a babe of a week!" says doctor; and he would be bound, 
There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. 

IV, 

Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue! 



THE GRANDMOTHER. 211 

I ought to have gone before him: I wonder hfe went so young. 
I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay: 
Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. 

V. 

Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and eold: 
But all my children have gone before me, I am so old: 
I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest; 
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

VI. 

For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear. 
All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear. 
I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe. 
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

VII. " 

For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well 
That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell. 
And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar! 
But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire. 

VIII. 

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise. 
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies. 
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, 
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 

IX. 

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day: 
And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May. 
Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been! 
But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean. 

X, 

And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late 

I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate. 

The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale, 

And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. 

XI. 

All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm, 
Willy, — he didn't see me, — and Jenny hung on his arm. 
Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how; 
Ah, there's no fool like the old one — it makes me angry now. 

XII. 

Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant; 
Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtsey and went. 
And I said, „Let us part: in a hundred years it'll all be the same, 
You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name." 

XIII. 

And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine: 
,/Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine. 
And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill; 
But marry me out of hand : we two shall be happy still. " 

XIV. 

„Marry you, Willy!" said I, „but I needs must speak my mind, 
And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind." 
But he turn'd and claspt me in his arms, and answer'd, ,/No, love, no;" 
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 



212 THE GRANDMOTHER. 

XV. 

So TN'illy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown; 
And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown. 
But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born, 
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. 

XVI. 

That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death. 

There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath. 

I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a wife; 

But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life. 

XVII. 

His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain: 

I look'd at the still little body — his trouble had all been in vain. 

For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn: 

But I wept like a child for the child that was dead 1/efore he was born, 

XVIII. 

But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay: 
Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way: 
Never jealous — not he: we had many a happy year; 
And he died, and I could not w^eep ~ my own time seem'd so near. 

XIX. 

But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died: 
I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. 
And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget: 
But as to the children, Annie, they*re all about me yet. 

XX. 

Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two, 
Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you: 
Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will. 
While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill. 

XXI. 

And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too — they sing to their team: 
Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream. 
They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed — 
I am not always certain 'if they be alive or dead. 

XXII. 

And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive; 
For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five: 
And Willy, my eldest born, at nigh threescore and ten; 
I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men. 

XXIII. 

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve; 
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve: 
And the neighbours come and laugh and gossip, and so do I; 
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by. 

XXIV. 

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad: 
But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had; 
And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life shall cease, 
And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace. 

XXV. 

And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain. 

And happy has been my life; but I would not live it again. 

1 seem to* be tired a little, that's all, and long for rest; 



NORTHERN FARMER. 21S 

Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

XXVI. 

So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born^ my flower; 
But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour, — 
Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next; 
I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext? 

XXVII. 

And Willy's wife has written, she never was over-wise. 
Get me my glasses, Annie-, thank God that I keep my eyes. 
There is buf a trifle left you, when I shall have past' away. 
But stay with the old woman now : you cannot have long' to stay. 

TsORTHERiS' FARMER. 

OLD STYLE. 
I. 

Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mea liggin' 'ere aloan? 
xVoorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor'sfabean an* agoiin 
Says that I moant *a naw moor aale: but I beiint a fool: 
Git ma my aiile, for I beant a-gooiu' to break my rule. 

II. 
Doctors, they knaws nowt, for a says what's nawways true: 
IN'aw soort o koind o' use to saay the things that a do. 
I've 'ed my point o' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere, 
An I've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. 

III. 
Parson's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin 'ere o' my bed. 
,/The amoighty's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," a said, 
An' a towd ma my sins, an's toithe were due, an' I gried it in bond: 
I done my duty by 'm, as I 'a done by the lond. 

IV. 

Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to lam. 

But a cast oop, thot a did, 'boot Bessy Marris's bairn, 

Thaw a knaws I hallus voated wi' Squoire an' choorch an' staate, 

An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur niver agin the raate, 

V. 

An' I hallus coomed to s choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead. 
An* 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock* ower my 'ead. 
An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut* to saay. 
An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I coom'd awaiiy. 

VI. 

Bessy Marris's bairn! tha knaws she laaid it to mea. 
Mowt 'a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad uu, shea. 
'Siver, I kep 'm, I'kep 'm, my lass, tha mun understond: 
I done my duty by 'm as I 'a done by the lond. 

VII. 

But Parson a comes an' a goos, an' a says it easy an' freeii 

„The amoighty's a taakin' o' you to 'issen, my friend," says 'eii. 

I weant saay men be loiars, thaw summun said it in 'aaste: 

But a reads wonn sarmin a weeiik, an' I 'a stubb'd Thurnaby waiiste. 

VIII. 

D'ya moind the waaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born then; 
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eerd 'm mysen; 
^Cockchafer. 



214 TITHONUS. 

Moast loike a butter-bump, * for I 'eerd *m aboot an' aboot, 
But I stubb'd *m oop wi' the lot, an* raaved an* rembled *m oot. 

IX. 

Reaper's it wur; fo' they fun *m theer a-laaid on *is faace 
Doon i* the woild 'enemies t afoor I coomed to the plaace. 
jS^oaks or Thimbleby — toaner *ed shot 'm as dead as a naail. 
Noaks wur 'ang*d for it oop at 'soize — but git ma my aale. 

X. 

Dubbut loook at the waaste: theer warn 't not feead for a cow: 
Xowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' loook at it now — 
Warnt worth nowt a haiicre, an' now theer's lots o' feead, 
Fourscoor yows upon it an' some on it doon in seead. . 

XI. 

Nobhut a bit on it's left, an* I mean*d to 'a stubb'd it at fall, 
Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' runn'd plow thruff it an' all, 
If godamoighty an' parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloiin, 
Mea, wi' haate oonderd haacre o' Squoire's, an' lond o' my oan, 

XII. 

Do godamoighty kwaw what a's doing a-taakin' o' mea? 
I beant wonn as saws 'ere a bean an' yonder a pea; 
An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all — a' dear a' dear! 
And I 'a managed for Squoire come Michaelmas thutty year. 

XIII. 

A mowt *a taken owd Joanes, as 'ant now a 'aapoth o' sense, 
Or a mowt 'a taaken Robins — a niver mended a fence; 
But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taake ma now 
Wi 'aaf the cows to cauve an' Thurnaby hoalms to plow ! 

XIV. 

Loook *ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma a passin' by, 

Says to thessen naw doubt „what a man a bea sewer-ly!" 

I'or they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a conied to tlie 'All; 

I done my duty by Squoire an' I done my duty by hall. 

XV. 

Squoire's in Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, 
For whoa's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit; 
Sartin-sewer I beii, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes, 
^'aw nor a moant to Robins — a niver rembles the stoans. 

XVI. 

But summun 'ull come ater meii mayhap wi* is kittle o' steiim 
Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed feiild's wi' the Divil's oan team. 
If I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet, 
But if I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. 

, XVII. 

What atta stannin* theer for, an* doesn bring ma the 'aale? 
Doctor's a toattler, lass, an a's hallus i' the owd taiile; 
I^weant break rules for Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a flov; 
Git ma my 'aale I tell tha, an' if I mun doy I mun doy. 

*Bittern, tAnemones. 

TITHONUS. 1 Man comes and tills the field and lies be- 

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, I (neath. 

The vapours weep their burthen to the And after many a summerdies the swan, 
(ground, ' Me only cruel immortality 



THE VOYAGE. 



215 



Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, 

Here at the quiet limit of the Avorlcl, 

A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a 

(dream 
The ever silent spaces of the East, 
Far-folded mists, an gleaming halls of morn. 

xilas 1 for this gray shadow, once a man — 
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, 
AVho madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd 
To his great heart none other than a God ! 
1 ask'dthee. ,/Give me immortality." 
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a 

(smile, 
Like w^ealthy men who care not how they 

(give. 
But thy strong Hours indignant work'd 

(their wills, 
And beat me down and marr'd and wasted 

(me, 
And the' they could not end me, left me 

(maim'd 
To dwell in presence of immortal youth. 
Immortal age beside immortal youth. 
And all I "r as, in ashes. Can thy love, 
Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now. 
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide. 
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with 

(tears 
To hear me ? Let me go : take back thy gift : 
Why should a man desire in any way 
To vary from the kindly race of men, 
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance 
Where all 'should pause, as is most meet for 

(all? 

A soft air fans the cloud apart: there comes 
A glimpse of that dark world where I was 

(born. 
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals 
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoul- 

(ders pure. 
And bosom beating with a heart renew'd. 
Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, 
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine. 
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild 

(team 
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise. 
And shake the darkness from their loosen'd 

(manes, 
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire . 

Lo ! ever thus thou growest beautiful 
In silence, then before thine answer given 
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. 
Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, 



And make me tremble lest a saying learnt. 
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true? 
„The Gods themselves cannot recall tlieir 

(gifts." 

Ay me I ay me ! with what another heart 
In days far-off, and with what other eyes 
I used to watcii — if I be he that watch'd— 
The lucid outline forniiug round thee; saw 
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; 
Changed with they mystic change, and felt 

(my blood 
Glow with the glow that slowly crinison'd all 
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay. 
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy- 

(warm 
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd 
AVhispering I knew not what of wild and 

(sweet. 
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 

Yet hold me not for ever in thine East : 
How can my nature longer mix with thine? 
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold 
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet 
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the 

(steam 
Eloats up from those dim fields about the 

(homes 
Of happy men that have the power to die. 
And grassy barrows of the happier dead. 
Release me, and restore me to the ground; 
Thou seest all things,thou wilt see my grave: 
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; 
I earth in earth forget these empty courts. 
And thee returning'on thy silver wheels. 

T H £ Y Y A G E. 



We left behind the painted buoy 

That tosses at the harbour-mouth; 
And madly danced our hearts with joy. 

As fast we fleeted to the South : 
How fresh was every sight and sound 

On open main or winding shore! 
We knew the merry world w'as round. 

And we might sail for evermore. 
II. 
Warm broke the breeze against the brow, 

Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail: 
The Lady's-head upon the prow 

Caught the shrill salt,and sheer'd thegale. 



216 



IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ. 



Tlie broad seas swcll'tl to meet the keel, 

And swept behind: so quick the run, 
We felt the o;ood ship shake and reel, 

We seem*d to sail into the Sun ! 
III. 
How oft we saw the Sun retire, 

And burn the threshold of the night. 
Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, 

And sleep beneath his pillar*d light! 
How oft the purple-skirted robe 

Of twilight slowly downward drawn. 
As thro' the slumber of the globe 

Again we dash'd into the dawn! 

IV, 

ICew stars all night above the brim 

Of waters lighten'd into view; 
They climb'd as quickly, for the rim 

Changed every moment as we flew. 
Far ran the naked moon across 

The houseless ocean's heaving field, 
Or flying shone, the silver boss 

Of her own halo's dusky shield ; 

V. 

The peaky islet shifted shapes, 

High towns on hills were dimly seen. 
We past long lines of Northern capes 

And dewy Xortliern meadows green. 
We came to warmer waves, and deep 

Across the boundless east we drove, 
Where those long swells of breaker sweep 

The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. 

VI. 

By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, 

Gloom'd the low coast and quivering 

(brine 
Witli ashy rains, that spreading made 

Fantastic plume or sable pine; 
By sands and steaming flats, and floods 

'Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast. 
And hills and scarlet-mingled woods 

Glow'd for a moment as we past. 

VII. 

hundred shores of happy climes. 

How swiftly stream'd ye by the bark ! 
At times the whole sea burn'd, at times 

With wakes of fire we tore the dark ; 
At times a carven craft Tvould shoot 

From havens hid in fairy bowers. 
With naked limbs and flowers and fruit. 

But we nor paused for fruit nor flowers. 

VIII. 

For one fair Vision ever fled 

Down the waste waters day and night. 
And still we follow'd where she led, 



In liope to gain upon her flight. 
Her face was evermore unseen, 

And flxt upon the far sea-line ; 
But each man murraur'd „0 my Queen, 
I follow till I make thee mine.'' 

IX. 

And now we lost her, now she gleam'd 

Like Fancy made of golden air, 
Now nearer to the prow she seem'd 

Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair, 
Now high on waves that idly burst 

Like Heavenly Hope she crown'd the sea^ 
And now, the bloodless point reversed, 

She bore the blade of Liberty. 

X. 

And only one among us — him 
We pleased not — he was soldom pleased : • 

He saw not far: his eyes were dim : 
But ours he swore were all diseased. 

//A ship of fools" heshriek'din spite, 
,/ A ship of fools" he sneer'^d and wept. 

And overboard one stormy night 
He cast his body, and on we swept. 

XI. 

xind never sail of ours was furl'd, 

Nor anchor dropt at eve or morn ; 
We loved the glories of the world, 

But laws. of nature were our scorn ; 
For blasts would rise and rnve and cease, 

But whence were those that drove the sail 
Across the whirlwind's heart of peace, 

And to and thro' the counter-gale? 

XII. 

Again to colder climes we came, 

For still we follow'd where she led: 
Now mate is blind and captain lame, 

And half the crew are sick or dead. 
But blind or lame or sick or sound 

We follow that which flies before : 
We know the merry world is round, 

And we may sail for evermore. 

IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ. 

All along the valley, stream that flashest 

(white. 
Deepening thy voice with the deepening o 

(the night. 
All along the valley, where thy waters flow, 
I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty 

(years ago. 
All along the valley while I walk'd to-day, 
The two and thirty years were a mist that 

(rolls away ; 
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed 



tme islet. 



217 



Thy living voice to me was as the voice of 

(the dead, 
And all along the valley, by rock and cave 

(and tree, 
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. 

THE FLOWER. 
Once in a golden hour 

I cast to earth a seed. 
Up there came a flower, 

The people said, a weed. 

To and fro they went 

Thro' my garden bower, 
And muttering discontent 

Cursed me and my flower. 

Then it grew so tall 

It wore a crown of light, 
But thieves from o'er the wall 

Stole the seed by night. ■ 

Sow'd it far and wide 
By every town and tower. 

Till all the people cried, 
„Splendid is the flower." 

Bead my little fable : 

He that runs may read. 
Most can raise the flowers now, 

Eor all have got the seed. 
And some are pretty enough, 

And some are poor indeed; 
And now again the people 

Call it but a weed. 

REQUIESCAT. 

Fair is her cottage in its place. 

Where yon broad water sweetly slowly 

(glides. 
It sees itself from thatch to base 

Dream in the sliding tides. 
And fairer she, but ah how soon to die! 

Her quiet dream of life this hour may 

(cease. 
Her peaceful being slowly passes by 

To some more perfect peace. 

THE SAILOR BOY. 
He rose at dawn and, fired with hope. 

Shot o*er the seething harbour-bar, 
And reach'd the ship and caught the rope 

And whistled to the morning star. 
And while he whistled long and loud 

He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, 



,,0 boy, tho' thou art young and proud, 
I see the place where thou wilt lie. 

,;The sands and yeasty surges mix 
In caves about the dreary bay. 

And on thy ribs the limpet sticks. 
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.'' 

„Fool," he answer'd, ,/death is sure 
To those that stay and those that roam, 

But I will nevermore endure 
To sit with empty hands at home. 

,/My mother clings about my neck, 
My sisters crying, 'Stay for shame / 

My father raves of death and wreck. 
They are all to blame, they are all to 
(blame. 

„God help me ! save I take my part 

Of danger on the roaring sea, 
A devil rises in my heart. 

Far worse than any death to me." 

THE ISLET. 
„Whithee, whither, love, shall we go. 
For a score of sweet little summers or so?" 
The sweet little wife of the singer said. 
On the day that followed the day she was 

(wed, 
//Whither, whither, love, shall we go?" 
And the singer sliaking his curly head 
Turn'd as he sat, and struck the keys 
There at his right with a sudden crash, 
Singing, „And shall it be over the seas 
With a crew that is neither rude nor rash. 
But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek'd, 
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak'd, 
With a satin sail of a ruby glow, 
To a sweet little Eden on earth that I know, 
A mountain islet pointed and peak'd : 
Waves on a diamond shingle dash. 
Cataract brooks to the ocean run, 
Fairily-delicate palaces shine 
Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine. 
And overstream'd and silvery-streak'd 
With many a rivulet high against the Sun 
The facets of the glorious mountain flash 
Above the valleys of palm and pine." 
„Thither, thither, love, let us go" 
//No, no, no ! 

For in all that exquisite isle, my dear, 
There is but one birdwith a musical throat, 
And his compass is but of a single note, 
That it makes one weary to hear." 



218 



A WELCOME TO ALEXAKLRJ. 



„Mock me not ! mock me not ! love, let ns go/' 

vNo, love, no. 

For the bud ever breaks into bloom on the 

(tree, 
And a storm never wakes on the lonely sea, 
And a worm is there in the lonely wood, 
That pierces the liver and blackens the 

(blood: 
And makes it a sorrow to be.'' 



THE RIXGLET. 
I. 
,, Your ringlets, your ringlets, 

That look so golden-gay, 
If you will give me one, but one, 

To kiss it night and day. 
Then never chilling touch of Time 

Will turn it silver-gray; 
And then shall I know itis all true gold 
To flame and sparkle and stream as of old, 
Till all the comets in heaven are cold. 

And all her stars decay." 
„Then take it, love, and put it by ; 
This cannot change, nor yet can I." 

II. 
,yMy ringlet, my ringlet. 

That art so golden-gay, 
Now never chilling touch of Time, 

Can turn thee silver-gray; 
And a lad may wink, and a girl may hint 

And a fool may say his say ; 
For my doubts and fears were all amiss, 
And I swear henceforth by this and this, 
That a doubt will only come for a kiss, 

And a fear to be kiss'd away." 
„Then kiss it, love, and put it by : 
If this can change, why so can I." 
III. 

Ringlet, Ringlet, 

I kiss'd you night and day. 
And Ringlet, Ringlet, 

You still are trolden-gay, 
But Ringlet, Ringlet, 

You should be silver-gray : 
For what is this which now I'm told, 

1 that took you for true gold. 

She that gave you's bought and sold. 
Sold, sold. 

IV. 

Ringlet, Ringlet, 

She blush'd a rosy red, 
When Ringlet, Ringlet, 

She clipt vou from her head. 
And Ringlet, Ringlet, 



She gave you me, and said, 
,/Come, kiss it, love, and put it bv: 
If this can change, why so can I.*'- 
fie, you golden nothing, he 
You golden lie. 

V. 

Ringlet, Ringlet, 

I count vou much to blame, 
For Ringlet, Ringlet, 

You put me much to shame, 
So Ringlet, Ringlet, 

I doom you to the flame. 
For what is this which now I learn, 
Has given all my faith a turn ? 
BurUj you glossy heretic, burn, 
Burn, burn. 

A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. 

Maech 7, 1863. 
Sea-xixgs' daughter from over the sea, 

Alexandra! 
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we. 
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, 

Alexandra ! 
Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet ! 
Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street! 
Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet, 
Scatter the blossom und'er her feet ! 
Break, happy land, into earlier flowers ! 
Make music, bird, in the new-budded 

(bowers ! 
Blazon your mottos of blessing and prayer! 
Welcom'e her, welcome her. all that is ours! 
Warble, bugle, and trumpet, blare! 
Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers ! 
Flames, on the windy headland flare! 
Letter your jubilee, steeple and spire ! 
Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air! 
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire ! 
Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher 
Melt into stars for the land's desire! 
Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice, 
Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand. 
Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, 
And welcome her, welcome the land's desire, 
The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair. 
Blissful bride of a blissful heir. 
Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea — 
joy to the people and joy to the throne, 
Come to us, love us and make us your own 
For Saxon or Dane or Norman we. 
Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be, 
We are each allDane in our welcome of thee, 

Alexandra. 



EXPERIMENTS. 219 

A DEDICATION. lAs one who feels the immeasurable world, 



Deae, near and true — no truer Time hinj- 

(self 
Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore 
Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life 
Shoots to the fall -take this and pray that he, 
Who wrote it, honouring your sweet faith 

(in him. 
May trust himself: and spite of praise and 

(scorn, 



Attain the wise indifference of the wise ; 
And after Autumns past — if left to pass 
His autumn into seeming-leafless days — 
Draw toward the long frost and longest 

(night. 
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit 
Which in our winter woodland looks a 

(flower. * 



EXPERIMENTS. 
BOADICEA. 
While about the shore of Mona those Neroniau legionaries 
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, 
Ear in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, 
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility. 
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodiine, 
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 
„They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces, 
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicaticg? 
Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated? 
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 
Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us? 
Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering? 
Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable, 
Blacken round the Uoman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton. 
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolf kin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, 
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. 
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodiine! 
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. 
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. 
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it. Spirit of Cassivelaun! 

„Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, Icenean, Coritanian! 
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant. 
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances, 
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially, 
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, 
Phanton wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies. 
Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men; 
Then a phantom colony smoulder*d on the refluent estuary; 
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering — 
There was one who watch'd and told me — down their statue of Victory fell. 
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodiine, 
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful? 
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously? 

,,Hear Icenean, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! 
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating. 
There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, 
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. 

* The fruit of the Spindle-tree CEv.omjmns Europaiisj . 



220 BOABICEA. 

'Fear uot, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! 

Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee, 

Thou Shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet! 

Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated. 

Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable, 

Thine the lands of lastins: summer, many-blossoming Paradises, 

Thine the North and tliiue the South and' thine the battle-thunder of God'.' 

So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier? 

So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now. . 

„Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian. hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty. 
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated, 
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators ! 
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy! 
"^A'herefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated. 
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulo.lune! 
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, 
Thither at their will they haled 'the yellow-ringleted Britoness — 
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable. 
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant, 
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously 
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the sraoke in a hurricane whirl'd. 
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Ciinobeline! 
There they drank in cups of emerald, there 'at tables of ebony lay, 
Boiling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy. 
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there — there — they dwell no more. 
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary, 
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable, 
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness. 
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated, 
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, 
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us." 

So the Queen Boiidicea, standing loftily charioted. 
Brandishing in ber hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, 
Yell'd and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubility. 
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated. 
Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments. 
Made the noise of frosty w^oodlands, w^he"n they shiver in January, 
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and' blanch on the precipices, 
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory. 
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries 
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, 
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice, 
^ill she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously, 
Then her pulses at the clamouring of her enemy fainted awa'y. 
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. 
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies. 
Perish'd many a maid and matron; many a valourous legionary, 
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodiine. 



THE OLD SEAT. 



221 



IN QUANTITY. 

MILTON. 

Alcaics. 
mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, 
skiird to sing of Time or Eternity; 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages; 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries. 
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 
Rings to The roar of an angel onset — 
Me rather all that bowery loneliness. 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 
xind bloom profuse and cedar arches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, 
Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even, 

HendecasyllaUcs. 
you cliorus of indolent reviewers. 
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, 
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem 
All composed in a metre of Catullus, 
All in quantity, careful of my motion, 
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, 
Lest I fall unawares before the people, 
Waking laughter in indolent reviewers. 
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble 
Thro' this metrification of Catullus, 
They should speak to me not without a 

(welcome. 
All that chorus of indolent reviewers. 
Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, 
So fantastical is the dainty metre. 
Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor be- 

(lieve me 
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. 
blatant Magazines, regard me rather — 
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment — 
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost 
Horticultural art, or half coquette-like 
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. 

SPECIMEN 

OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN 
BLANK VEESE. 

So Hector said, and sea-like roar'd his host ; 
Then loosed their sweating horses from the 

(yoke. 
And each beside his chariot bound his own ; 
And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep ' 
Inhaste they drove, and honey-hearted wine 



And bread from out the houses brought, and 

(heap'd 
Their firewood, and the winds from off the 
. (plain 

Roll'd the rich vapour far into the heaven. 
And these all night upon the bridge * of war 
Sat glorying; many afire before themblazed : 
As when in heaven the s^ars about the moon 
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 
And every height comes out, and jutting 

(peak 
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 
Break open to their highest, and all the stars 
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his 

(heart : 
So many a fire between the ships and stream 
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, 
A thousand on the plain; and close by each 
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; ' 
And champing golden giain, the horses stood 
Harn byS their chariots, waiting for the 

(dawn, t 

7/^(^8.543—561. 

* Or ridge. 

t Or more literally — 
And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds 
Stood by their cars, waiting the throned 

(morn. 

1865.— 1866. 
I STOOD on a tower in the wet, 
And new Year and Old Year met. 
And winds were roaring and blowing ; 
And I said, ,;0 years, that meet in tears. 
Have ye aught that is worth the knowing ? 
Science enough and exploring. 
Wanderers coming and going, 
Matter enough for deploring, 
But aught that is worth the knowing?" 
Seas at my feet were flowing, • 
Waves on the shingle pouring. 
Old Year roaring and blowing, 
xind New Year blowing and roaring. 

THE OLD SEAT. 
Dear Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

How strange with you once moreto meet, 
To hold your hand, to hear your voice, 

To sit beside you on this seat ! 
You miLd the time we sat here last ? — 

Two little children-lovers we. 
Each loving each with simple faith, 

I all to you — you all to me. 



232 



THE VICTIM. 



Ah! Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

We sit together now as theu ; 
I press j^our haud, you meet my glance, 

V\'e seem as if we loved again. 
But in my heart I feel the truth, 

The dear old times have passed away : 
The love that once possessed our souls 

We do but simulate to-day. 
Since last we met my Lady Yere, 

You've grown in years and culture too, 
And, putting childish things away. 

Have ceased to be sincere and true, 
Naught caring for a single soul. 

You spare no trouble, reck no pain. 
To add another name unto 

The bead-roll of the hearts you*ve slain. 
To you, my Lady Vere de Vere, 

What is it that a heart may break ? 
You had no hazard in the game — r 

He should have played with equal stake. 
You did but seek to while away 

The slow hours of an idle night; 
The fault lay with the fool who failed 

To read your character aright. 
But, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

You make your wares by far too cheap ; 
Your net claims all as fish that comes 

Within the limit of its sweeps. 
You sit beside me here to-day, 

You try to make me love again; 
But I am safe the while I think 

You've sat thus with a scorn of men. 
Still, Lady Clara, Clara, dear. 

Beneath your finished mask I see 
The gentle heart, the honest mind. 

That made you once so dear to me. 
Your voice is still as sweet as then. 

Your face is still as pure and good : 
I see the graces of my love 

All ripened in her womanhood. 
If some day, Clara Vere de Vere, 

You weary of the counterfeit. 
And look with yearning back upon 

The old times linked with this seat — • 
If you would change your fleeting loves 

1 or one true love for evermore. 
Then we will come and see this place, 

And sit together, as of yore. 
But meanwhile, Lady Vere de Vere, 

Of me win all renown you may; 
A plaything fresh my heart for you, 

A new world for your sovereign sway 



Bring all your practised charms in play, 
Shoot all your darts, they cannot hurt : 

For when me meet I clothe me in 
The proved chain-armor of a flirt. 

THE VICTIM. 
I. 
A PLAGUE upon the people fell, 

A famine after laid them low. 
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire. 

For on them brake the sudden foe ; 
So thick they died the people cried 

„The Gods are moved against the land." 
The priest in horror about his altar 

To Thor and Odin lifted a hand : 

„Help us fro m famine 
And plague and strife ! 
What would you have of us? 
Human life ? 
W^ere it our nearest, 
Were it our dearest, 
(Answer, answer) 
We give you his life." 
II. 
But still the foemau spoil'd and burn'd, 

And cattle died, and deer in wood, 
And bird in air, and fishes turn'd 

And whiten'd all the rolling flood ; 
And dead men lay all over the way. 

Or down in a furrow scathed with flame: 
And ever and aye the Priesthood moan'd 
Till at last it seemed that an answer came : 
„The King is happy 
In child and wife ; 
Take you his nearest, 
Take you his dearest, 
Give us a life." 
III. 
The Priest went out by heath and hill ; 

The King was hunting in the wild ; 
They found the mother sitting still: 
She cast her arms about the child. 
The child was only eight summers old. 

His beauty still with his years increased, 
His face was ruddy, his hair was gold. 
He seem'd a victim due to the priest. 
The Priest beheld him. 
And cried with joy, 
„The Gods have answer'd: 
We give them the boy." 

IV. 

The King return'd from out the wild, 
He bore but little game in hand; 



LVCRETIUS. 



The mother said ./They have taken the child 

To spill his blood and heal the land : 
The land is sick, the people diseased, 

And blight and famine on all the lea : 
The holy Gods, they must be appeased, 
So I pray you tell the truth to me. 
They have taken our son, 
They will have his life. 
Is he vour dearest ? 
Or I, the wife?" 

V. 

The King bent low, with hand on brow, 

He stay'd his arms upon his knee : 
„0 wife, what use to answer now ? 

For now the Priest has judged for me." 
The King was shaken with holy fear; 
/,The Gods," he said, „would'have chosen 
(well; 
Yet both are near, and both are dear. 
And which the dearest I cannot tell !" 
But the Priest was happy, 
His victim won: 
„We have his nearest, 
His only son!" 

VI. 

I The rites prepared, the victim bared, 
The knife uprising toward the blow, 
To the altar-stone she sprang alone, 
„Me, not my darling, no !" 
r He caught her away with a sudden cry ; 

Suddenly from him brake the wife, 
I And shrieking ,,/am his dearest, I — 

/ am his dearest!" rush'd on the knife. 
And the Priest was happy, 
,/0, Father Odin, 
We give you a life. 
Which was his nearest ? 
Which was his dearest? 
The Gods have_ answered ; 
We give them the wife!" 

LUCRETIUS. 
LuciLiA, wedded to Lucretius, found 
Her master cold; for when the morning flush 
Of passion and the first embrace had died 
Between them ,tho' he loved her none the less, 
Yet often when the woman heard his foot 
Return from pacings in the field, and ran 
To greet him with a kiss, the master took 
Small notice, or austerely, for — his mind 
Half buried in some weightier argument, 
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise 
And long roll of the Hexameter — he past 
To turn and ponder those three hundred 
(scrolls 



Left by the Teacher whom he held divine 
She brook'd it not; but wrathful, petulant 
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a 

(witch 
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, 

(they said, 
To lead an errant passion home again. 
And this, at times, she mingled with his 

(drink. 
And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth 
Confused the chemic labour of the blood, 
xind tickling the brute brain within the 

(man's 
Made havock among those tender cells and 

(checked 
His power to shape : he loath'd himself; and 

(once 
After a tempest woke upon a morn 
That mock'd him with returning calm, and 

(cried ; 

„Storminthenight! for thrice I heard the 

(rain, 
Rushing; and once the flash of a thunder- 

(bolt — 
Methought I never saw so fierce a fork — 
Struck out the streaming mountain-side, 

(and show'd 
A riotous confluence of watercourses 
Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it, 
Where all but yester-eye was dusty-dry. 

Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods 

(what dreams ! 
Forthrice I waken'd afterdreams.Perchance 
We do but recollect the dreams that come , 
Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem'd 
A void was made in Nature ; all her bonds 
Crack'd: and I saw the flaring atom-streams 
And torrents of her myriad universe, 
Ruining along the illimitable inane, 
Fly on to clash together again, and make 
Another and another frame of things 
For ever : that was mine, my dream, I knew 

(it- 

Of and belonging to me, as the dog 
With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies 
His function of the woodland : but the next! 
I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed 
Came driving rainlike down again on earth, 
And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, 

(sprang 
IS^o dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth. 
For these I thought my dream would show 

(to me, 



224 



LUCRETIUS. 



But girls, Hetairai, curions in their art, 
Hired animalisms, vile as those that made 
The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worse 
Tlian aught they fable of the quiet Gods. 
And hands they'mixt, and yell'd and round 

(me drove 
In narrowing circles till I yell'd again 
Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw — 
Was it the first beam of my latest day ? 

,/Then, then, from utter gloom stood out 

(the breasts, 
ThebreastsofHelen,andhoveringlyasword 
Now over and now under, now direct, 
Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down sha- 

(med 
At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire. 
The tire that left a roofless Ilion, 
Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I 

(woke, 

„Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine, 
Becausel would not one of thine own doves, 
^S'ot ev'n a rose, were offer'd to thee r thine, 
Forgetful how my rich procemion makes 
Thy glory fly along the Italian field. 
In lays that'will outlast thy Deity? 

,/Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue 
Trips, or I speak profanely. Which 'of these 
Angers thee most, or angers thee at all r 
Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof 
I'rom envy, hate and pity, and spite and 

(scorn, * 
Live the great life which all our greatest fain 
Would follow, center'd in eternal calm. 

„Nay, if thou can'st, Goddess, like our- 

(selves 
Touch, and be touch'd, then would I crv to 

(thee 
To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms 
Round him, and keep him from the lust of 

(blood 
That makes a steaming slaughter-house of 

(Rome, 

,/Ay, but I meant not thee: I meant not 

(her, 
AVhom all the pines of Ida shook to see 
Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and 

(tempt 
The Trojan, while his neat-herds were 

(abroad; 
Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept 
Her Deity false in human-amorous tears ; 
Xor whom her beardless apple-arbiter 



Decided fairest. Rather, ye Gods, 
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called 
Calliope to grace liis golden verse — 
Ay, and this Kypris also — did I take 
That popular name of thine to shadow forth 
The all-generating powers and genial heat 
Of Nature, when" she strikes through the 

(thick blood 
Of cattle, and light is large and lambs are 

(glad 
Nosing the mother's udder, and the bird 
Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of 

(flowers: 
Which things appear the work of mighty 

(Gods. 

./The Gods ! and if I go niy work is left 
L'nfinish'd — if I go. The Gods, who haunt 
The lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a 

(wind, 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans. 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm! and such, 
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm, 
Not such, nor all unlike it, man mav gain 
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Gods ! 
If all be atoms, how^then should the Gods 
Being atomic not be dissoluble, 
Not follow the great law ? My master held 
That G ods there are, for all men so believe. 
I prest my footsteps into his, and meant 
Surely to lead my Memmius in a train ^ 
Of flowery clauses onward to the proof 
That Gods there are, and deathless. Meant? 

(I meant ? 
I have forgotten what I meant : my mind 
Stumbles,~"and all my faculties are lamed. 

,/Look where another of our Gods, the Sun 
Apollo, Delius, or of older use 
All-seeing Hyperion — what you will — 
Had mounted yonder; since he never sware, 
Except his wrath were wreak'd on wretched 

(man, 
That he would only shine among the dead 
Hereafter ; tales 1 for never yet on earth 
Could dead flesh creep, or bits of roastingox 
Moan round the spit — nor knows he what 

(he sees; 
King of the East altho' he seem, and girt 
With song and flame and fragrance, slowly 

(lifts 
His golden feet on those empurpled stairs 



LUCRETIUS. 



225 



j That climb into the windy halls of heaven : 
I And here he glances on an eye new-born, 
And gets for greeting but a wail of pnin ; 
And here he stays upon a freezing r ■:* 
■ That fain would gaze upon him to \ l.e last ; 
I And here upon a yellow eyelid fall n 
i And closed by those who mourn a friend in 
(vain, 
jN'ot thankful that his troubles are no more. 
And me, altho' his lire is on my face 
Blinding, he sees not, nor at all can tell 
AVhether I mean this day to end myself, 
Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, 
i That men like soldiers may not quit the post 
i xlUotted by the Gods : but he that holds 
i The Gods are careless, wherefore need he 
(care 
Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at once. 
Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and 

(sink 
Past earthquake — ay, and gout and stone, 

(that break 
Body toward death, and palsy, death-in-life, 
And wretched age — and worst disease of 

(all, 
These prodigies of myriad nakednesses, 
And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable. 
Abominable, strangers at my hearth 
Tsot welcome, harpies miring every dish. 
The phantom husks of something foully 

(done, 
And fleeting thro' the boundless universe, 
And blasting the long quiet of my breast 
With animal heat and dire insanity ? 

,,How should the mind, except it loved 

(them, clasp 
These idols to herself? or do they fly 
' Now thinner, and now thicker, like the 

(flakes 
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce 
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour 
Of civic tumult j am the doors, and bear 
The keepers down, and throng, their rags 

(and they. 
The basest, far into that council-hall 
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land? 

„Can I not fling this horror off me again. 
Seeing with how great ease Nature can 

(smile, 
' Balmier andnoblerfromher bath of storm. 
At random ravage ? and how easily 
The mountain there has cast his cloudy 

(slough, 



Now towering o'er him in serenest air, 

A mountain o'er a mountain, — ay, and 

(within 
All hollow as the hopes and fears of men? 

„But who was he, that in the garden 

(snared 
Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale 
To laugh at — more to laugh at in myself — 
For look : what is it? there? yon arbutus 
Totters ; a noiseless riot underneath 
Strikes through the wood, sets all tlie tops 

(quivering — 
The mountain quickens into Nymph and 

(Faun; 
And here an Oread — how the sun delights 
To glance and shift about her slippery sides, 
And rosy knees and supple roundedness, 
And budded bosom-peaks — who this way 

(runs 
Before the rest — A satyr, a satyr,, see. 
Follows ; but him I proved impossible: 
Twy-natured is no nature : yet he draws 
Nearer and nearer, and I scan him now 
Beastlier than any phantom of his kind 
That ever butted Lis rough brother-brute 
For lust or lusty blood or provender: 
I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him ; and she 
Loatheshirn as well ; such a precipitateheel, 
Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle- 

(wing. 
Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself, 
Siiameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot: 

(nay. 
Hide , hide them, million-myrtled wilder- 

(ness. 
And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I 

(wish — 
What ? — that the bush were leafless r or to 

(whelm 
All of them in one massacre ? ye Gods, 
I know you careless, yet, behold, to you 
From childly wont and ancient use t call — 
I thought I lived securely as yourselves — 
No lewdness, narrowing envy,monkey-spite, 
No madness of ambition, avarice, none: 
No larger feast than under plane or pine 
With neighbours laid along the grass, to 

(take 
Only such cups as left us friendly-warm, 
xlffirming each his own philosophy — 
Nothing to mar the sober majesties 
Of settled, sweet. Epicurean life. 
But now it seems some unseen rnuiisterlays 



THE C ATT J IN. 



His vast and filtliv hands upon my will, 
Wrenchins: it backward into his ; and spoils 
My bliss in being ; and it was not great ; 
i'or save wlien shutting reasons up in 

(rhythm, 
Or Heliconian honey in living words, 
To make a truth less harsh, I often grew 
Tired of so much within our little life, 
Or of so little in our little life — 
Poor little life that toddles half an hour 
Crown'd with a flower or two, and there 

(an end — 
And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade, 
Why should I, beastlike as I find myself, 
Not manlike end myself? — our privilege — 
T>'hat beast has heart to do it? And what 

(man, . 

Wliat Roman would be dragg'd m triumph 

(thus? 
Not I ; not he, who bears one name with her 
Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom 

(of kings, . . 

When, brooking not the Tarqum m her 

(veins. 
She made her blood in sight of Collatine 
And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air, 
Spou^ from the maiden fountain m her 

(heart. ^,. 

And from it sprang the Commonwealth, 

(which breaks 
As I am breaking now! 

„And therefore now 
Let her, that is the womb and tomb of all, 
Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart 
Those blind beginnings that have made 

(me man 
Dash them anew together at her will 
Through all her cycles — into man once 

(more, ^ ^ ^ 

Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower: 
But till this cosmic order everywhere 
Shatter'd into one earthquake m one day 
Cracks all to pieces, — and that hour 

(perhaps 
Is not so far whfen momentary man 
Shall seem no more a something to himseU, 
But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and 

(fanes, , 

And even his bones long laid withm tne 

The vtry sides of the grave itself shall pass, 
Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, 
Into the unseen for ever, — till that hour, 
Mv f'olden work in which I told a truth 



That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel, 
And numbs the i'ury's singlet-snake, and 

(plucks 
The nioital soul from on immortal hell,. 
Shall stand : ay, surely : then it fails at last 
And perishes as I must ; for Thou, 
Passionless bride, divine Tranquility, 
Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wise, 
Who fail to find thee, being as thou art 
Without one pleasure and without one pain, i 
Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine ' 
Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus 
I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not 
How roughly men may woo thee so they 

(win — -,-,.. 

Thus — thus: the soul flies out and dies in 

(the air/' 

With that he drove the knife into his side: 
She heard him raging, heard him fall; ran 

Beat breast, tore hair,cried out upon herself 
As bavins: fail'd in duty to him, shriek'd 
That she" but meant to win him back, fell 

(on him, 
Clasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd; he answ^er d, 

(„Care not thou! 
Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee wfelU" 

My life is full of weary days, 

But good things have not kept aloof, 
Nor wandered into other ways: 

I have not lack'd thy mild reproof, 
Nor golden largess of thy praise. 
And now shake hands across the brink 

Of that deep grave to which I go : 
Shake hands once more: I cannot sink 

So far — far down, but I shall know ' 
Thy voice, and answer from below. 

THE CAPTAIN. 

A LEGEND 01' THE NAVY. 

He that only rules by terror 

Doeth grievous wrong. 
Deep as Hell I count his error. 

Let him hear my song. 
Brave the Captain was: the seamen 

Made a gallant crew, 
Gallant sons of English freemen, 

Sailors bold and true. 
But thev hated his oppression, 
I Stern he was and rash ; 
I So for everv light transgression 
i Doom'd them to the lash. 



THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE. 



227 



Day by day more harsh and cruel 

Seem'd the Captain's mood. 
Secret wrath like smother'd fuel 

Burnt in each man's blood. 
Yet he hoped to purchase glory, 

Hoped to make the name 
Of his vessel great in story, 

Wheresoe'er he came. 
So they past by capes and islands. 

Many a harbour-mouth, 
Sailing under palmy highlands 

Far within the South. 
On a day wlien they were going 

O'er the lone expanse, 
In the north, her canvas flowing, 

Rose a ship of France, 
Then the Captain's colour heigh ten'd. 

Joyful came his speech : 
But a cloudy gladness lighten'd 

In the eyes of each. 
„Chase," he said: the ship flew forward, 

And the wind did blow; 
Stately, lightly, w^ent she Norward, 

Till she neai-'d the foe. 
Then they look'd at him they hated. 

Had what they desired: 
Mute with folded arms they waited — 

Not a gun was fired. 
But they heard the foeman's thunder 

Roaring out their dooni ; 
All the air was torn in sunder. 

Crashing went the boom, 
Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd, 

Bullets fell like rain -, 
Over mast and deck were scatter'd 

Blood and brains of men. 
Spars were splinter'd ; decks were broken : 

Every mother's son — 
Down they dropt — no word was spoken — 

Each beside his gun. 
On the decks as they were lying, 

Were their faces grim. 
In their blood, as they lay dying, 

Did they smile on him. 
Those, in whom he had reliance 

For his noble name. 
With one smile of still defiance 

Sold him unto shame. 
Shame and wrath his heart confounded, 

Pale he turn'd and red. 
Till himself was deadly wounded 

Falling on the dead. 
Dismal error! fearful slaughter! 

Years have wander'd by, 



Side by side beneath the water 

Crew and Captain lie; 
There the sunlit ocean tosses 

O'er them mouldering. 
And the lonely seabird crosses 

With one waft of the wing. 

THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE. 
I. 

Cauess'd or chidden by the dainty hand, 

And singing airy trilles this or that, 
Light Hope at Beauty's call Avould perch 
(and stand. 

And run thro' every change of sharp and 
(flat; 

And Fancy came and at her pillow sat. 
When sleep had bound her in his rosy band, 
Andjchased awayjthe still-recurring gnat, 
And w^oke her with a lay from fairy land. 
But now they live with Beauty less and less, 
For Hope is other Hope and wanders far, 
Nor cares to lisp in love's delicious 
(creeds ; 
And Fancy watches in the wilderness. 
Poor Fancy sadder than a single star. 
That sets at twilight in a land of reeds. 
II. 
The form, the form alone is eloquent ! 
A nobler yearning never broke her rest 
Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, 
xind win all eyes with all accomplishment : 
Yet in the waltzing-circle as we went, 
My fancy made me for a moment blest 
To find my heart so near the beauteous 
(breast 
That once had powder to rob it of content. 
A moment came the tenderness of tears. 
The phantom of a wish that once could 
(move, 
A ghost of passion that no smiles re- 
(store — 
For ah! the slight coquette,she cannot love, 
And if you kiss'd her feet a thousand years. 
She still would take the praise, and care 
(no more. 

III. 
Wan Sculptor weepest thou to take the cast 
Of those dead lineaments that near thee lieV 
sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past. 
In painting some dead friend from memoryV 
Weep on : beyond his object Love can last : 
His object lives: more cause to weep have I: 
My tears, no tears of love, are flowing fast. 
No tears of love, but tears tliat Love can die. 



228 



NORTHERN FARMER. 



1 pledge her not iu any cheerful cup, 
Nor care to sit beside her where she sits — 
Ah pity — hint it not in human tones, 
But breathe it into eartli and close it up 
With secret death for ever, in the pits 
Which some green Christmas crams 
(with weary bones. 

SONG. 

Lady, let the rolling drums 

Beat to battle where thy warrior stands : 
Now thy face across his fancy comes. 

And gives the battle to his hands. 

Lady, let the trumpets blow, 

Clasp thy little babes about thy knee : 
Now their warrior father meets the foe. 

And strikes Mm dead for thine and thee. 

SONG. 
Home they brought him slain with spears. 
They brought him home at even-fall : 
All alone she sits and hears 
Echoes iu his empty hall. 
Sounding on the morrow. 

The Sun peep'd in from open field, 
The boy began to leap and prance, 
Rode upon his father's lance, 

Beat upon his father's shield — 
„0 hush, my joy, my sorrow." 

ON A MOURNER. 

Nature, so far as in her lies. 
Imitates God, and turns her face 

To every land beneath the skies, 

Counts nothing that she meets with base, 
But lives and loves in every place; 



Eills out the homely quickset-screeus, 

And m.akes the purple lilac ripe. 
Steps from her airy hill, and greens 

The swamp, where hums the dropping 

(snipe, 

With moss and braided marish-pipe; 
III. 
And on thy heart a finger lays, 

Saying, „Beat quicker, for the time 
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways 

Are pleasant, and the beech and lime 

Put forth and feel a gladder clime." 

IV. 

And murmurs of a deeper voice, 
Going before to some far shrine, 

Teach that sick hearth the stronger choice, 
Till al thy life one way incline 
With one wide will that closes thine. 

V. 

And when the zoning eve has died 
Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn, 

Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride, 
From out the borders of the morn , 
With that fair child betwixt them born. 

VI. 

And when no mortal motion jars 
The blackness round the tombing sod. 

Thro' silence and the trembling stars 
Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod. 
And Virtue, like a household god. 

VII. 

Promising empire ; such as those 
That once at dead of night did greet 

Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose 
With sarifice while all the fleet 
Had rest by stony hills of Crete. 



NORTHERN FARMER. 

NEW STYLE. 



Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaiiy? 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'em saay. 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains: 
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains. 

II. 
Woa— theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam: yon's parson's 'ouse- 
Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man or a mouse? 
Time to think on it then; for thou'U be twenty to weeak. * 
Proputty, proputty— woa then woa— let ma 'ear mysen speak. 

III. 
Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as bean a-talkin' o' thee ; 

* This week. 



NOR THERN FAR MER. 

Thou's been talkin' to mutiier, an' she bean a telliu' it me. 
Tliou'll not marry for muny — thou*s sweet upo' parson's lass — 
Noa — tlion'll marry for luvv — an* we boath on us thinks tlia an ass. 

IV. 

Seea'd her todaay goa by — Saaint's-daay — they was ringing the bells. 
She's abeauty thou thinks — an' soa is scoors o' gells, 
Them as 'as munny an' all — wot's a beauty? — the flower as blaws. 
But proputty, proputty sticks: an' proputty, proputty graws. 

V. 

Do'ant be stunt: * taake time: I knaws what maakes tha sa mad. 
Warn't I craazed fur the lasses mysen when I wur a lad? 
But I knaw'd a Quaaker feller as often 'as towd ma this: 
„Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is!" 

VI. 

An' I went wheer munny war: an' thy mother coom to 'and, 

Wi' lots o' munny laa'id by, an' a nicetish bit o' land. 

Maaybe she warn't a beauty: — I niver giv it a thowt — 

But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass ass 'ant nowt? 

VII, 

Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a nowt when 'e's dead, 
Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle t her bread : 
Why? fur e's nobbut a curate, an' weant niver git naw 'igher; 
An' 'e maiide the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shire, 

VIII. 

An thin ' e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o 'Varsity debt, 
Stook to his taail they did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet. 
An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noan to lend 'im a shove. 
Wo orse nor a far welter'd § yowe: fur, Sammy, 'e married fur luvv. 

IX. 

Luvv? what's luvv? thou can luvv thy lass an' 'er munny too, 
Maakin' 'em goa togither as they've good right to do. 
Could'n I luvv thy muther by cause o' 'er munny laaid by? 
Naay — fur I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it: roason why. 

X- 
Ay an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, 
Cooms of a gentleman burn: an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. 
Woa then, proputty, wiltha ? — an ass as near as mays nowt ** — 
Woa then, wiltha? danghta! — the bees is as fell as owt. ft 

XI. 

Break me a bit o' the esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' the fence! 
Gentleman burn! what's gentleman burn? is it shillins an' pence? 
Proputty, proputty 's ivry thing 'ere an', Sammy, I'm blest 
If it isn't the saame oop yonder, fur them as 'as it's the best. 

XII. 

Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals, 
Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taakes their regular meals. 
Noa, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meals to be 'ad. 
Taake my word ford it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. 

XIII. 

Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a bean a laazy lot, 

* Obstinate. f Earn. 

§ Or fow-welter'd, — said of a sheep lying on its back in the furrow. 

** Makes nothing. ft The flies are as fierce as anything. 



230 THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 

i'ur work niuii 'a goue to the <5ittiu* wiiiuiver munuy was got. 

Feyther 'ad animost nowt; leastwaays Ms munuy was 'id. 

But *e tued an' moil'd 'issen dead, an 'e died a good un, 'e did. 

XIV. 

Loook tliou tlieer wlieer Wrigglesby beck comes out by tlie 'ill! 
reyther run up to the farm, an' I runs up to the mill; 
An* I'll run up to the brig, an' that thou'll live to see; 
And if thou marries a good un I'll leave the land to thee. 

XV. 

Tliim's my noations, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick; 
But if thou marries a bad un, I'll leave the land to Dick. — 
Coom oop, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'im saay — 
Proputty, proputtyj proputty'— canter an' canter awaay. 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 

[This poem is founded upon a story in 

Boccaccio. 
A young lover, Julian, whose cousin and 
foster-sister, Camilla, has been wedded 
to his friend and rival, Lionel, endeav- 
ours to narrate the story of his own 
love for her, and the strange sequel of 
it. He speaks of, having been haunted 
in delirium by visions and the sound of 
bells, sometimes tolling for a funeral, 
and at last, ringing for a marriage; but 
he breaks away, overcome, as he ap- 
proaches the Event, and a witness to it 
completes the tale.] 
He flies the event : he leaves the event to me : 
Poor Julian — how he rush'd away; the bells. 
Those marriage bells, echoing in ear and 

(heart — 
But cast a parting glance at me, you saw, 
As who should say ,/ continue.'' Well, he had 
One golden hour — of triumph shall I say? 
Solace at least — before he left his home. 
Would you had seen him in that hour of 
(his ! 
He moved thro' all of it majestically — 
Restrain'd himself quite to ithe close — but 
(now — 

Whether they icere his ladv's marriage- 
(bells, 
Or prophets of them in his fantasy, 
I never ask'd: ])ut Lionel and the girl 
Were wedded, and our Julian came again 
Back to his mother's house among thepines. 
But these, their gloom, the mountains and 

(the Bay, 
The whole land weigh'd him down as .Etna 
(does 



The Giant of Mythology : he would go, 
Would leave the land for ever, and had gone 
Surely, but for a whisper „Go not yet," 
Some warning, and divinely as it seem'd 
By that whichfollow'd — butof thisi deem 
As of the visions that he told — the event 
Glanced back upon them in his after life, 
And partly made them — tho' he knew it 

(not. 

And thus he stay 'd and would not look at 

(her — 
No not for months : but, when the eleventh 

(moon 
After their marriage lit the lover's Bay, 
Heard yet once m'ore the tolling bell, and 

(said, 
Would you could toll me out of life, but 

(found — 
All softly as his mother broke it to him — 
A crueller reason than a crazy ear, 
For that low knell tolling his'lady dead — 
Dead — and had lain three days without a 

(pulse : 
All that look'd on her had pronounced her 

(dead. 
And so they bore her (for in Julian's land 
They never'nail a dumb head up in elm), 
Bore her free-faced to the free airs of heaven, 
And laid her in the vault of her own kin. 

What did he then ? not die : he is here and 

(hale — 
Not plunge headforemost from the moun- 

(tain there, 
xind leave the name of Lover's Leap: not he: 
He knew the meaning of the whisper now, 
Thought that he knew it. „This, I stay'd 

(for this.; 
love, I have net seen you for so long. 
Now, now, will I go down into the grave, 



TBE golden SVPTElt. 



281 



I will be all alone with all I love, 
And kiss her on the lips. She is his no more : 
The dead returns to me, and I go down 
To kiss the dead." 

The fancy stirr'd him so 
He rose and went, and entering the dim 

(vault, 
And, making there a sudden light, beheld 
All round about him that which all will be. 
The light was but a flash, and went again. 
Then at the far end of the vault he saw 
His lady with the moonlight on her face ; 
Her breast as in a shadow-prison, bars 
Of black and bands of silver, which the moon 
Struck from an open grating overhead 
High in the wall, and all the rest of her 
Drown'd in the gloom and horror of the 

(vault. 

„lt was my wish," he said, ,/to pass, to sleep. 
To rest, to be with her — till the great day 
Peal'd on us with that music which rights 

(all, 
And raised us hand in hand.^' And kneeling 

(there 
Down in the dreadful dust that once was 

(man , 
Dust, as he said, that once was loving hearts, 
Hearts that had beat with such a love as 

(mine — 
Not such as mine, no, nor for such as her — 
He softly put his arm about her neck 
And kiss'd her more than once, till helpless 

(death 
And silence made him bold — nay, but I 

(wrong him, 
He reverenced his dear lady even in death ; 
But, placing his true hand upon her heart, 
„0, you warm heart," he moan*d, „not even 

(death 
Can chill you all at once:" then starting, 

(thought 
His dreams had come again. „Do I wake or 

(sleep ? 
Or am I made immortal, or my love 
Mortal once more?" It beat — the heart — 

(it beat : 
Faint — but it beat; at which his own began 
To pulse with such a vehemence that it 

(drown'd 
The feebler motion underneath his hand. 
But when at last his doubts were satisfied. 
He raised her softly from the sepulchre, 
And, wrapping her all over with the cloak 



He came in, and now striding fast, and now 
Sitting awhile to rest, but evermore 
Holding his golden burthen in his arms, 
So bore her thro' the solitary land 
Back to the mother's house where she was 
(born. 

Therethe good mother's kindly ministering, 
With half a night's appliances, recall'd 
Her flilttering life : she rais'd an eye that 

(ask'd 
„ Where?" till the things familiar to her 

(youth 
Had made a silent answer: then she spoke 
„Here! and how came I here?" and learning it 
(They told her somewhat rashly as I think) 
At once began to wander and to wail, 
„ Ay, but you know that you must give me 

(back : 
Send! bid him come;" but Lionel was away — 
Stung by his loss had vanish'd, none knew 

(where. 
„He casts me out," she wept, „and goes" — 

(a wail 
That seeming something, yet was nothing, 

(born 
Not from believing mind,but shattered nerve. 
Yet haunting Julian, as her own reproof 
At some precipitance in her burial. 
Then, when her own true spirit had returned, 
,/0 yes,and you," she said,„and none but you. 
For you have given me life and love again, 
Andnonebutyouyourselfshalltellhimofit, 
And you shall give me back when he re- 

(turns." 
,;Stay then a little," answer'd Julian, „here. 
And keep yourself, none knowing, to your- 

(self; 
And I will do your will. I may not stay, 
No, not an hour; but send me notice of him 
When he returns, and then will I return. 
And I will make a solemn offering of you 
To him you love." And faintly she replied, 
„xind I will do / 02ir will, and none shall 

(know." 

Not know? with such a secret to be known. 
But all their house was old and loved them 

(both, 
And all the house had known the loves of 

(both; 
Had died almost to serve them any way, 
And all the land was waste and solitary : 
And then he rode away ; but after this, 
An hour or two, Camilla's travail came - 



232 



TEE GOLDEN SUPPER, 



Upon her, and that day a boy was born. 
Heir of his face and land, to Lionel. 

And thus our lonely lover rode away, 
And pausing at a hostel in a marsh, 
There fever seized upon him:uiyself was then 
Travelling that land, and meant to rest an 

(hour; 
And sitting down to such a base repast, 
It makes me angry yet to speak of it — 
I heard a groaning overhead, and climb'd 
The moulder'd stairs (for everything was 

vile) 
And in a loft, with none to wait on him, 
Found, as it seem'd, a skeleton alone. 
Raving of dead men's dust and beating 

(hearts. 

A dismal hostel in a dismal land, 
A flat malarian world of reed and rush! 
But there from fever and my care of him 
Sprang up a friendship that may help us yet. 
I'or while we roam*d along the dreary coast, 
And waited for her message, piece by piece 
I learnt the drearier story of his life ; 
And, tho' he loved andhonour'd Lionel, 
Found that the sudden wail his lady made 
Dwelt in his fancy : did he know her worth, 
Her beauty evenV should he not be taught, 
Ev'n by the price that others set upon it , 
The value of that jewel he had to guard ? 
Suddenly came her notice and we past, 
I with our lover to his native Bay. 
This love is of the brain, the mind, the 
(soul : 
Thai makes the sequel pure, tho' some of us 
Beginning at the sequel know no more. 
Not such am I : and yet I say, the bird 
That will not hear my call, however sweet. 
But if my neighbour whistle answers him — 
What matter V there are others in the wood. 
Yet when I saw her (and I thought him 

(crazed, 
Tho' not with such a craziness as needs 
A cell and keeper), those dark eyes of hers — 
Oh! such dark eyes! and not her eyes alone, 
But all from these to where she touch'd on 

(earth, 
lor such a craziness as Julian's seem'd 
No less than one divine apology. 

So sweetly and so modestly she came 
To greet U3,*her young hero in her arms! 
„Kiss him," she said. ,,You gave me life 
(again. 



He, but for you, had never seen it once. 
His other father you ! Kiss him, and then 
Forgive him, if his name be Julian too.'- 

Talk of lost hopes and broken heart ! his 

(own 
Sent such a flame into his face, I knew 
Some sudden vivid pleasure hit him there. 

But he was all the more resolved to go, 
And sent at once to Lionel, praying him 
By that great love they both had borne the 

'(dead, 
To come and revel for one hour with him 
Before he left the land for evermore ; 
And then to friends — they were not 

(many — who lived 
Scatteringly about that lonely land of his, 
xind bade them to a banquet of farewells. 

And Julian made a solemn feast : I never 
Sat at a costlier; for all round his hall 
From column on to column, as in a wood, 
Not such as here — an equatorial one, 
Great garlands swung and blossom'd; and 

(beneath. 
Heirlooms, and ancient miracles of Art, 
Chalice and salver, wines that, Heaven 

(knows when, 
Had suck'd the fire of some forgotten sun, 
And kept it thro' a hundred years of gloom, 
Yet glowing in a heart of ruby — cups 
Where nvmph and god ran' ever round in 

(gold — 
Others of glass as costly — somewithgems 
Moveable and resettable at will, 
And trebling all the rest in value — Ah 

(heavens !• 
Why need I tell you all? — sufl&ce to say 
That whatsoever such a house as his. 
And his was old, has in it rare or fair 
Was brought before the guest: and they, the 

(guests 
Wonder'd at some strange light in Julian's 

(eyes 
(I told you that he had his golden hour), 
And such a feast, ill-suited as it seem'd 
To such a time, to Lionel's loss and his. 
And that resolved sell-exile from a land 
He never would revisit, such a feast 
So rich, so strange, and stranger ev'n than 

(rich, 
But rich as for the nuptials of a king. 

And stranger yet, at one end of the hall 
Two great funereal curtains, looping down, 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



Parted a little ere they met the floor, 
About a picture of his lady, taken 
Some years before, and falliughidthe frame. 
And just above the parting was a lamp: 
So the sweet figure folded round with night 
Seem'd stepping out of darkness with a 

(smile. 

Well then — our solemn feast— we ate 

(and drank, 
And might — the wines being of such no- 

(bleness — 
Have jested also, but for Julian's eyes, 
And something weird and wild about it all : 
What was it? for our lover seldom spoke. 
Scarce touch'd the meats; but ever and anon 
A priceless goblet with a priceless wine 
Arising, show'd he drank beyond his use; 
And when the feast was near and end, he 

(said : 

,, There is a custom in the Orient,friends — 
I read of it in Persia — when a man 
Will honour those who feast with him, he 

(brings 
And shows them whatsoever he accounts 
Of all his treasures the most beautiful. 
Gold, jewels, arms, whatever it may be. 
This custom'' — 

Pausing here a moment, all 
The guests broke in upon him with meeting 

(hands 
And cries about the banquet — ,/Beautiful ! 
Who could desire more beauty at a feast?" 

The lover answer'd, ,yThere is more than 

(one 
Here sitting who desires it. Laud me not 
Before my time, but hear me to the close. 
This custom steps yet further when the 

(guest 
Is loved andhonour'dto theuttermost. 
For after he has shown him gems or gold, 
He brings and sets before him in rich guise 
That which is thrice as beautiful as these. 
The beauty that is dearest to his heart — 
'0 my heart's lord, would I could show you,' 

(he says, 
'Ev'nmy heart too.* And I propose to-night 
To show you what is dearest to my heart. 
And my heart too. 

„But solve me first a doubt. 
I knew- a man, nor many years ago; 
He had a faithful servant, one who loved 
His master more than all on earth beside. 
He falling sick, andseeming close on death. 



His master would not wait until he died. 
But bade his menials bear him from the door, 
And leave him in the public way to die. 
I knew another, not so long ago. 
Who found the dying servant, took him 

(home. 
And fed, and cherish'd him, and saved liis 

(life. 
I ask you how, should this first master claim 
His service, whom does it belong to ? him 
Who thrust him out, or him who saved his 

(life?" 

This question, so flung down before the 

(guests. 
And balanced either way by each, at length 
When some were doubtful how the law 

(would hold. 
Was handed over by consent of all 
To one who had not spoken, Lionel. 
Tair speech was his, and delicate of phrase. 
And he beginning languidly — his loss 
Weigh'd on him yet — but warming as he 

(went. 
Glanced at the point of law, to pass it by, 
Affirming that as long as either lived. 
By all the laws of love and gratefulness. 
The service of the one so saved was due 
All to the saver — adding, with a smile, 
The first for many week — a semi-smile 
As at a strong conclusion — ./body and soul 
And life and limbs, all his to work his will." 

Then Julian made a secret sign to me 
To bring Camilla down before them all. 
And crossing her own picture as she came, 
And looking as much lovelier as herself 
Is lovelier than all others — on her head 
A diamond circlet, and from under this 
A veil, that seem'd no more than gilded air, 
Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze 
With seeds of gold — so, with that grace of 

(hers, 
Slow-moving as a wave against the wind. 
That flings a mist behind it in the sun — 
And bearing high in arms the mighty babe, 
The younger Julian, who himself was 

(crown'd 
With roses, none so rosy as himself — 
And over all herbabeandher the jewels 
Of many generations of his house 
Sparkled and flash'd, for he had decked 

(them out 
As for a solemn sacrifice of love — 
So she came in : — I am long in telling it. 



234 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



I uever yet l)eliel(l a tiling so stranj^e, 
Sad, sweet, and stransre together — floated 

(iu- 
^\ liile all the guests in mute amazement 

(rose, — 
And slov\'ly pacing to the middle hall, 
Before the board, there paused and stood, 

(her breast 
Hard-heaving, and her eyes upon her feet, 
Xot daring yet to glance at Lionel. 
But him she carried, him nor lights nor feast 
Dazed or amazed, nor eyes of men; who cared 
Only to use his own, and staring wide 
And hungering for the gilt and jewelFd 

(world 
About him, look'd, as he is like to prove, 
When Julian goes, the lord of all he saw. 

./My guests," said Julian: „youarehon- 

(our'd now 
Ev'n to the uttermost : in her behold 
Of all my treasures the most beautiful. 
Of all things upon earth the dearest to me." 
Then waving us a sign to seat ourselves, 
Led his dear lady to a chair of state. 
And I, by Lionel sitting, saw his face 
Lire, and dead ashes and all lire again 
Thrice in a second, felt him tremble too. 
And heard him muttering. ,/So like, so like, 
Slie never had a sister. I knew none. 
Some cousin ofhisandhers-OGod,so like!" 
And then he suddenly ask'd her if she were. 
She shook, and cast her eyes down, and was 

(dumb.. 
And then some other question'd if she came 
Lrom foreign lands, and still she did not 

(speak. 
Another, if the boy were hers: but she 
To all their queries auswer'd not a word, 
Which made the amazement more, till one 

(of them 
Said, shuddering, ,/Her spectre!" But his 

(friend 
Replied, in half a whisper, „Kot at least 
The spectre that will speak if spoken to. 
Terrible pity, if one so beautiful 
Prove, as I almost dread to find her, dumb!" 

But Julian, sitting by her, answer'd all: 
,,Shc is but dumb, because in her you see 
That faithful servant wliom we spoke about, 
Obedient to her second master now ; 
Which will not last. I have here to-night 

(a guest 
So bound to me by common love and loss — 



Wliat ! sliall I bind him mure ': in liis l)ehalf, 
Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him 
That which of all things is the dearest 

(to me, 
!N'ot only showing? and he himself pro- 

(nounced 
That my rich gift is wholly mine to give. 

r/Xow all be dumb, and promise all of you 
]Xot to break in on what I say by word * 
Or whisper, while I show you all my heart." 
And then began the story of his love 
As here to-day, but not so Avordily — 
The passionate moment would not suffer 

(tliat — 
Past thro' his visions to the burial; thence 
Down to this last strange hour in his own 

(hall; 
And then rose up, and with him all his 

(guests 
Once more as by enchantment ; all but he, 
Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again, 
And sat as if in chains — to whom he said : 

,,Take my free gift, my cousin, for your 

(wife; 
And were it only for the giver's sake. 
And tho' she seem so like the one you lost. 
Yet cast her not away so suddenly, 
Lest there be none left here to bring her 

(back : 
I leave this land for ever." Here he ceased. 

Then taking his dear lady by one hand, 
And bearing on one arm the noble babe. 
He slowly brought them both to Lionel. 
And there the widower husband and dead 

(wife 
Rush'd each at each with a cry, that rather 

(seem'd 
For some new death than for a life renew'd; 
At this the very babe began to wail ; 
At once they turn'd, and caught and 

(brought him in 
To their charm'd circle, and, half-killing 

(him 
With kisses, round him closed and claspt 

(again. 
But Lionel, when at last he freed himself 
From wife and child, and lifted up a face 
All over glowing with the sun of life. 
And love, and boundless thanks — the sight 

(of this 
So frighted our good friend, that turning 

(to me 
And saying, .,It is over: let us go" — 



LITEEART SqVABBLES. 



235 

There were our horses ready at the doors — j He past for ever from his native land ; 
We hade them no farewell, hut mounting xind I with him, ray Julian, hack to mine, 
(these I 



WAGE S. 
Glory of w^arrior, glory of orator, glory of song, 

Paid with a' voice flying by to he lost on an endless sea — 
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to 'struggle, to right the wrong — 

IS'a'y, hut she aini'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 
The wages of sin 'is death: if the wages of Virtue he dust. 

Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? 
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, 

To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: 
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. 



THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. 
The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains — 
Are not these, Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 
Is not the Vision he? tho' He be not that which He seems? 
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? 
Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, 
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him ? 
Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; 
For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel „1 am I?'' 
Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom. 
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom 
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet 
Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 
God is law, say the wise; Soul, and let us rejoice. 
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. 
Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; 
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; 
And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; 
But if we could see and hear, this Vision — were it not He? 

Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies; — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is. 



LITERARY SQUABBLES. 

Ah God ! the petty fools of rhyme 
That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars 
Before the stony face of Time,' 
And look'd at by the silent stars : 

Who hate each other for a song, 
And do their little best to bite 



And pinch their brethren in the throng, 
And scratch the very dead for spite : 

And strain to make an inch of room 
For their sweet selves, and cannot hear 
The sullen Lethe rolling doom 
On them and theirs and all things here -. 

When one small touch of Charity 



286 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Could lift them nearer God-like state 

Than if the crowded Orb should cry 

Like those who cried Diana great : 

And I too, talk, and lose the touch 

I talk of. Surely, after all, 

The noblest answer unto such 

Is perfect stillness when they brawl. 

IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

DEDICATION. 

These to His Memory— since he held them 

(dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself — I dedicate, 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears 
These Idylls. 

And indeed He seems to me 
Scarce other than my own ideal knight, 
„Who reverenced his conscience as his king 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong 
"Who spake no slander,no,norlisten'dtoit 
Who loved one only and who clave to her — " 
Her — over all whose realms to their last isle, 
Commingled with the gloom of imminent 

(war, 
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse. 
Darkening the world. We have lost him: he 

(is gone: 
We know him now: all narrow jealousies 
Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, 
How modest, kindly, all-accomplisli'd,wise, 
With what sublime repression of himself. 
And in what limits, and how tenderly; 
xS'ot swaying to this faction or to that; 
Not making liis high place the lawless perch 
Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground 
For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of years 
Wearing the white flower of ablameless life, 
Eefore a thousand peering littlenesses. 
In t'hat fierce light which beats upon a 

(throne, 
And blackens every blot : for where is he, 
Who dares foreshadow for an only son 
A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than his V 
Or how should England dreaming ofZ'i* sons 
Hope more for these than some inheritance 
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine. 
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, 
Laborious for lier people and her poor — 
Voice in tJie rich dawn of an ampler day — 
Far-sighted summouer of War and Waste 



To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace — 
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam 
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, 
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, 
Beyond all titles, and a household name. 
Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good. 

Break not, woman's-heart, but still en- 

(dure ; 
Break not, for thou art Eoyal, but endure, 
Remembering all the beauty of that star 
Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye 

(made 
One light together, but has past and leaves 
The Crown a lonely splendour. 

May all love, 
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, 
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, 
The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, 
Tnelove of all Thy people comfort Thee, 
Till God's love set Thee at his side again! 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 

Leodogean, the King of Cameliard, 
Had one fair daughter, and none other child; 
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 

For many a petty king ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land ; 
And still from time to time the heathen host 
Swarm'doverseas,and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 
Wherein the beast was ever more and more. 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died. 
And after him King Uther fought and died, 
But either fail'dto make the kingdom one. 
And after these King Arthur for a space, 
And thro' the puissance of his Table Round, 
Drew all their petty princedoms under him, 
Their king and head, and made a realm, and 

(reign'd. 

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast 

(therein. 
And none or few to scare or chase the beast; 
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields. 
And wallow'd in the gardens of the king. 
And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
The children and devour, but now and then, 
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce 

(teat 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR, 



237 



To human sucklings ; and the children, 

(housed 
In her foul den, there at their meat would 

(gn^owl, 
And mock their foster-mother on four feet, 
Till, straighten'd they grew up to wolf-lii^e 

(men, 
Woise than the wolves. And King Leodogran 
Groan'd for the Homan legions here a^ain, 
AndCfesar's eagle: then his brother king, 
Eience, assail'd him : last a heathen horde, 
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth 

(with blood, 
And on the spike that split the mothei-'sheart 
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, 
He knew not whither he should turn for aid_ 
But — for he heard of Arthur newly 
( crown' d, 
Tho' not without an uproar made by those 
Who cried, ,,He is notUther's son'' — the king 
Sent to him, saying, ,, Arise, and help us thoul 
For here between the man and beast we die. " 
And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, 
But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere 
Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass; 
But since he neither wore on helm or shield 
The golden symbol of his kinglihood, 
But rode a simple knight among his knights, 
And many of these in richer arms Vhan he. 
She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw, 
One among many, tho' his face was bare. 
But Arthur, looking downward as he past, 
Felt the light of her eyes into his life 
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pit ch'd 
His tents beside the forest. And he drave 
The heathen, and he slew the beast, and fell'd 
The forest, and let in the sun, and made 
Broad pathwavs for the hunter and the 

(knight ; 
And so return'd. 

For^while he linger'd there, 
A doubt that ever smoulder'd in the hearts 
Of those great Lords andBaronsofhisrealm 
Flash'd forth and into war; for most of these 
Made head against him, crying, ../Who is he 
That he shouldrule us? who hathproven him, 
King Uther's son r for lo I we look at him 
And find nor face nor bearing,limbs nor voice, 
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
This is the son of Gorlois, not the king ; 
This is the son of Anton, not the king."" 

And Ai'thur, passing thence to battle, felt 
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, 



Desiring to be join'd with G uinevere; 
And thinking as he rode, //Her father said 
That there between the man and beast they 

^ (die. 

Shall I not lift her from this lands of beasts 
Up to my throne, and side by side with me ? 
AYhat happiness to reign a lonely king, 
Yext — ye stars that shudder over me, 

earth that soundest hollow under me, 
Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be 

(join'd 
To her that is the fairest under heaven, 

1 seem as nothing in the mighty world. 
And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
"Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 
Victor and lord. But' were I join'd with her, 
Then might we live together as one life, 
And reigning with one will in everything 
Have power on tliis dark land to lighten it. 
And power on this dead world to make it 

(live.'' 

And Arthur from the field of battle sent 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 
His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
Saying, ,Jf I in aught have served thee well, 
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife," 

Whom when he heard, Leodagran in heart 
Debating — ,;How should I that am a king. 
However much he liolp nie at my need. 
Give my one daughter saving to a king, 
And a kins's son'' — lifted his voice, and 

(call'd 
A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 
He trusted all things, and of him required 
His cottnsel: ^Knowest thou aught ofAr- 

(thur's birth?" 

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and 

vsaid, 
,/Sir king, there be but two old men that 

know: 
And each is twice as old as I; and one 
Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 
King Uther thro' his magic art : and one 
Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 
Who taught him magic ; hut the scholar ran 
Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 
Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote 
All things and whatsoever Merlin did 
In one great annal-book, where after-years 
Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth.'- 

To whom the King Leodogran replied, 
„0 friend, had I been holpenhalf as well 



238 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



By this Kmg Arthur as by thee to-day, 
Then beast and man had had their share of 

(me: 
But summon here before us yet once more 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere/' 

Then, when they came before him, the 

(king said, 
/, L have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser 

(fowl, 
And reason in the chase: but wherefore now 
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war, 
Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, 
Others of Anton ? Tell me, ye yourselves, 
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?'' 

And Ulfius and Brastias answer'd, „Ay.'' 
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights' 
Knighted byArthur at his crowning,spake — 
I'or bold in heart and act and word was he, 
Whenever slander breathed against the 

(king — 

„Sir, there be many rumours on thishead: 
For there be thoss who hate him in their 

(hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are 

(sweet. 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than 

(man: 
And there be those who deem him more than 

(man. 
And dream he dropt from heaven : but my 

[belief 
In all this matter — so ye care to learn — 
Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 
The prince and warrior Gorlois, hethatheld 
Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, 
Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne : 
And daughters had she borne him, one 

(whereof, 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 
Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved 
To Arthur, — but a son she had not borne. 
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love: 
But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, 
So loathed the bright dishonour of his love, 
That Gorlois and King Uther went to war : 
And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. 
Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 
Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men. 
Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls, 
Left her and fled, and Uther enter'd in, 
And there was none to call to but himself. 
So: compass'd by the power of the king, 
Enforced she was to wed him in her tears, 



And with a shameful swiftness: afterward, 
Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 
Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 
And that same night, the night of the new 

(year, 
By reason of the bitterness and grief 
That vext his mother, all before his time 
Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate 
To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
Until his hour should come; because the 

(lords 
Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 
Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the 

(child 
Piecemeal among them, had they known; 

(for each 
But sought to rule for his own self and hand, 
And many hated Uther for the sake 
Of Gorlois. Wherefore Merlin took the child, 
And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 
And ancient friend of Uther ; and his wife 
Nursed the young prince, and rear'd hira 

(with her own ; 
And no man knew. And ever since the lords 
Have foughten like wild beasts among 

(themselves. 
So that the realm has gone to wrack: but 

(now. 
This year, when Merlin (for his hour had 

come) 
Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the 

(hall. 
Proclaiming, „Here is Uther's heir, your 

(king," 
A hundred voices cried, „ Away with him ! 
No king of ours ! a son of Gorlois he, 
Or else the child of Anton, and no king, 
Or else baseborn. " Yet Merlin thro' his craft, 
And while the people clamour'd for a king. 
Had Arthur crown'd ; but after, the great 

(lords 
Banded, and so brake out in open war." 

Then wh ile the king debated with himself 
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness. 
Or born the son of Gorlois, after death, 
Or Uther's son, and born before his time. 
Or whether there were truth in anything 
Saidbythesethree,therecametoCameliard, 
With Gawain and young Modred, her two 

(sons, 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent. 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 



239 



AYhom as lie could,not as lie would,ilieking 
Made feast for, saying, as tliey sat at meat, 

„Adoubtful throne is ice on summer seas - 
Ye come from Arthur's court : think ye this 

(king 
So few his knights, however brave they be — 
Hatt body enow to beat his foemen down r'- 

„G king," she cried, ,/and I will tell thee : 

Fcw.butall brave, all of one miudwithhim; 
For 1 was near him when the savage yells 
Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
Crown'donthe dais, and his warriors cried, 
'Be thou the king,aud we will work thy will 
¥ho love thee.' Then the king in low deep 

(tones, 
And simple words of great authoritj^. 
Bound them by so strait vows to his own 

(self, 
That when they rose, knighted from kneel- 

(ing, some 
Were pale as at.the passing of a ghost, 
Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who 

(wakes 
Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 

„But when hespake and cheer'd his Table 

(Round 
TYitli large divine and comfortable words 
Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld 
Troni eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
A momentary likeness of the king : 
And ere it left their faces, thro' the cross 
And those around it and the Crucitied, 
Down from the casenieiit over Arthur, smote 
Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays, 
One falling upon each of three fair queens. 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the 

(friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

„And there I saw mage Merlin, whose 

(vast wit 
And hundred winters are but as the hands 
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 

,, And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
Clothed in white samite, mystic,wonderful. 
She gave the king his huge cross-hilted 

(sword. 
Whereby to drive the heathen out : a mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Welluigh was hidden in the minstergloom; 



Bui tliere was heard among the holy hymuo 
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 
Down in a deep, calm, whatsoever storms 
May shake the world, and when the surface 

(rolls. 
Hath power to Avalk the waters like our 

(Lord. 

„There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
Before him at his crowning borne,the sword 
That rose from out the bosom of the lake, 
And Arthur row'd across and took it — rich 
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 
Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so 

(bright 
That men are blinded by it — on one side. 
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
'Take me,' but turn the blade and you shall 

(see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
'Cast me away !' And sad was Arthur's face 
Taking it, but old Merlin counsell'd him, 
'Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 
Is yet far-off.' So this great brand the king 
Took,andby this willbeat his foemen down." 

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
To sift his doubtings to the last, and ask'd. 
Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 
„The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
But thou art closer to this noble prince, 
Being his own dear sister;" and she said, 
,/Daugliter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I;" 
„And therefore Arthur's sister," ask'd the 

(King. 
She answer'd, „These be secret things," and 

(sign'd 
To those two sons to pass and let them be. 
And Gawain went, and breaking into song 
Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 
Eau like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 
But Modred laid his ear beside the doors. 
And there half heard; the same that after- 

(ward 
Struck for the throne, and striking found 

(his doom. 

And then the Queen made answer, „ What 

(know I ? 
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair. 
And dark in hair and eyes am I : and dark 
Was Gorlois, yea and dark was Uther too, 
Wellnigh to blackness; but this kingisf;ur 
Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 
Moreover always in my mind I hear 
A cry from out the dawning of my life, 



240 



IDFLLS OF THE KING. 



A mother weeping, and 1 hear her say, 
„0 that ye had some brother, pretty one, 
To guard thee on the rough ways of the 

(world." 

vAy," said the King, „and hear ye such 

(a c7-y? 
But wiien did Arthur chance upon thee 

(first?" 

„0 king!" she cried, „and I will tell thee 

(true : 
He found me first when yet a little maid: 
Beaten I liad been for a little fault 
Whereof 1 was not guilty ; and out I ran 
And flung myself down on a bank of heath, 
And hated this fair world and all therein, 
And wept, and wish'd that I were dead; 

(and he — 
I know not whether of himself he came, 
Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can 

(walk 
^ Unseen at pleasure — he was at my side, 
And spake sweet words, and comforted my 

(heart, 
And dried my tears, being a child with me. 
And many a time he came, and evermore 
As I grew greater grew with me : and sad 
At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I, 
Stern too at times, and then I loved himnot. 
But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 
And now of late I see him less and less, 
But those first days had golden hours for me, 
l"or then I surely thought he would be king. 

„But let me tell thee now another tale: 
J'or Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say, 
JJied but of late, and sent his cry to me. 
To hear him speak before he left his life. 
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage. 
And when I enter'd told me that himself 
And Merlin ever served about the king, 
Uther, before he died, and on the night 
When Uther in Tintagil past away 
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
Left the still king, and passing forth to 

(breathe, 
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
Descending thro' thedismal night — a night 
In which the bounds of heaven and earth 

(were lost — 
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 
It seem'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 
A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 
Bright with a shining people on the decks, 
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 



Dropt to the cove, and watch'd the great 

(sea fall. 
Wave after wave, each mightier than the 

(last. 
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the 

(deep 
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame: 
And down the wave and in the flame \f as 

(borne 
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet. 
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cr^ed 

(The King! 
Here is an heir for Uther !' And the fringe 
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the 

(strand, 
Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word. 
And all at once all round him rose in fire, 
So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 
And presently thereafter follow'd calm, 
Free sky and stars : 'And this same child,* 

(he said, 
'Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 
Till this were told.' And saying this the 

(seer 
Went thro' the strait and dreadful pass of 

(death, 
Not ever to be question'd any more 
Save on the further side ; but when I met 
Merlin, and ask'd him if these things were 

(truth — 
The shining dragon and the naked child 
Descending in the glory of the seas — 
He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me 
In riddling triplets of old time, and said: 

„'E,ain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the 

(sky! 
A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the 

(lea! 
And truth is this to me, and tliat too thee ; 
And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 

Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom 

(blows: 

Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who 

(knows? 
From the great deep to the great deep he 

(goes." 

„So Merlin riddling anger'd me; but thou 
Fear not to give this king thine only child, 
Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing 
Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old 



GARETH AND LYNETTE. 



241 



K,aiigiu<<Hiulrin5i:inii;tliro'tlie minds of men, 
And echo'd by old folk beside their fires 
For comfort after their wage-work is done, 
Speak of the kingj and Merlin in our time 
Hath spoken also, not in Jest, and sworn 
Tho* men may wound him that he will not 

(die, 
But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot, 
Till these and all men hail him for their 

(king." 

She spake and king Leodogran rejoiced, 
But musing „Shall 1 answer yea or nay?" 
Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, 

(and saw, 
Dreaming, ,-i slope of land that ever grew, 
Field after field, up to a height, the peak 
Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, 
Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope 
The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was 

(driven. 
Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof 

(and rick, 
In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, 
Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the 

(haze 
And made it thicker; while the phantom king 
Sent out at times a voice; and here or there 
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, 

(the rest 
Slew on and burnt, crying, ^No king of ours, 
No son of Uther, and no king of ours ;" 
Till with a wink his dream was changed, the 

(haze 
Descended, and the solid earth became 
As nothing,and the king stood out in heaven, 
Crown'd. And Leodogran awoke, and sent 
Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, 
Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. 

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom 

(he loved 
And honour'd most, Sir Lancelot, to ride 

(forth 
And bring the Queen; — and watch'd him 

(from the gates : 
And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
(For then was latter April) and return'd 
Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint, 
Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the king 
That morn was married, while in stainless 

white. 



The fairl)eginners of a nobler time, 

And glorying in their vows and liim, his 

(knights 
Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 
„Reign ye, and live and love, and make the 

(world 
Other, and may thy Queen, be one with thee, 
And all this Order of thy Table Bound 
Fulfil the boundless purpose of their king." 

Then at the marriage feast came in from 

(Rome, 
The slowly-fading mistress of the world, 
Great lords, who claim'd the tribute as of 

(yore. 
But Arthur spake, //Behold, for these have 

(sworn. 
To fight my wars, and worship me their king; 
The old order changeth, yielding place to 

(new; 
And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 
To drive the heathen from your Roman wall, 
No tribute will we pay:" so those great lords 
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with 

(Rome. 

And Arthur and his knigthood for a space 
Were all one will, and thro' that strength 

(the king 
Drew in the petty princedoms under him, 
Fought,and in twelve great battles overcame 
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and 

(reign'd. 

GARETH AND LYNETTE. 

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, 
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 
Stared at the spate, A slender-shafted Pine 
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirl'd away. 
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false 

(knight 
Or evil king before my lance if lance 
Were mine to use — senseless cataract. 
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy — 
And yet thou art but swollen with cold 

(snows. 
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will, 
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that 

(know, 
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's 

(hall 
Linger with vacillating obedience, 



242 



IDYLS OF THE KING. 



Prisoii'd, and kept and cuax'd and wliistled 

(to — 
Since the good mother holds me still a 

(child — 
Good mother is bad mother unto me! 
A worse were better ; yet no worse would I. 
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force 
To weary her ears with one continuous 

(prayer, 
Vntil she let me fly diseased to sweep 
In ever-liighering eagle-circles up 
To the great Sun of (xlory, and thence swoop 
Down upon all things base, and dash them 

(dead, 
A knight of Arthur, working out his will. 
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when 

(he came 
With Modred hither in the summertime, 
Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven 

(knight. 
Modred for want of worthier was the jud^je. 
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, 
,,Thou hast half prevail'd against me,'- said 

(so — he— 
Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute. 
For he is alway sullen : what care I ?' 

And Gareth went, and hovering round 

(her chair 
Ask'd, 'Mother, tho' ye count me still the 

(child, 
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She 

(laugh'd, 
'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.' 
'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said, 
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild, 
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-be- 

(loved. 
And 'twere but of the goose and golden 

(eggs.' 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling 

(eyes, 
Xay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine 
Was finer gold than any goose can lay ; 
I'or this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid 
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm 
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. 
And there was ever haunting round the 

(palm 
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw 
The splendour sparkling from aloft, and 

(thought 
.,An I could climb and lay my handuponit, 
Then were 1 wealthier than a leash of kings." 



But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb, 
One, that had loved him from his childhood, 

(caught 
And stay'd him, ,, Climb not lest thou break 

(they neck, 
I charge thee by my love," and so the boy. 
Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his 

(neck, 
But brake his very heart in pining for it, 
And past away.' 

To Avhom the mother said, 
'True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and 

(climb'd, 
And handed down the golden treasure to 

(him.' 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling 

(eyes, 
'Gold? said I gold? — ay then, why he, or 

(she. 
Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world 
Had ventured — had the thing I spake of been 
Mere gold— but this was all of that true 

(steel, 
Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur, 
And lightnings play'd about it in the storm. 
And all the little fowl were flurried at it, 
And there were cries and clashings in the 

(nest, 
That sent him from his senses : let me go.* 

Then Bellicent bemoan'd herself and said, 
'Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness? 
Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth 
Lies like a log, and all but smoulder'd out! 
Eor ever since when traitor to the King 
He fought against him in the Barons' war, 
And Arthur gave him back his territory, 
His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies 

(there 
A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, 
iS'o more; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, 

(nor knows. 
And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall. 
Albeit neither loved with that full love 
I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love: 
Stay therefore thou ; red berries charm the 

(bird. 
And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the 

(wars. 
Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang 
Of wrench'd or broken limb — an often 

(chance 
In those brainvstunning shocks, and tour- 

(uey-falls. 



GJRETE AND LTNETTE. 



243 



Frights to my heart; hut stay: follow the 

(deer 
By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns; 
So make thy manhood mightier day by day ; 
Sweet is the chase: and I will seek th'ee out 
Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace 
Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone 

(year, 
Till falling into Lot's forgetfulness 
I know not thee, myself, nor anything. 
Stay, my best son! ye are yet more boy than 

(man/ 

Then Gareth, 'An ye hold me yet for child, 
Hear yet once more the story of the child. 
For, mother, there was once a King, like 

(ours; 
The prince his heir,when tall and marriage 

(able, 
Ask'd for a bride ; and thereupon the King 
Set two before him. One was fair, strong, 

(armd' — 
But to be won by force — and many men 
Desired her ; one, good lack, no man desired. 
And these were the conditions of the King: 
That save he won the first by force, he needs 
Must wed that other, whom no man desired. 
k red-faced bride who knew herself so vile, 
That evermere she long'd to hide herseif, 
Isov fronted man or woman, eye to eye — 
Yea — some she cleaved to, but they died of 

(her. 
And one — they call'd her Fame; and one, 

(Mother, 
How can yekeep metether'd to you — Shame! 
Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. 
Follow the deer r follow the Christ,the King, 
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow 

(the King — 
Else, wherefore born?" 

To whom the mother said ; 
•Sweet son, for there be many w^ho deem 

(him not, 
Or will not deemhim, wholly proven King — 
Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King, 
When I was frequent with him in my youth, 
And heard him Kengly speak, and doubted 

(him 
No more than he, himself; but felt him mine, 
Of closest kih to me : yet— wilt thou leave 
Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, 
Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? 
Stay 'till the cloud that settles round his 

(birth 



Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son.* 

And Gareth answerd'd quickly, 'Not an 

(hour, 
So that ye yield me— I will walk thro* fire. 
Mother, to gain it— your full leave to go. 
Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin'd 

(Borne 
From off the threshold of the realm, and 

(crush'd 
The Idolaters, and made the people free r 
Who should be King save him who makes 

(us free ? 

So when the Queen, who long had sought 

(in vain 
To break him from the intent to which he 

(grew, 
Found her son's will unwaveringly one, 
She answer'd craftily, 'Will ye walk thro'" 

(fire ? 
Who walks thro' fire will hardly heed the 

(smoke. 
Ay, go then, an ye must : only one proof, 
Before thou ask the King to make thee 

(knight, 
Of thine obedience and thy love to me. 
Thy mother, — I demand.'* 

And Gareth cried, 
'A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. 
Nay— quick! the proof to prove me to the 

(quick !' 

But slowly spake the mother looking at 

(him, 
'Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur's 

(hall, 
And hire thyself to serve for meats and 

(drinks 
Among the scullions and the kitchen- 

(knaves, 
And those that hand the dish across the 

(bar 
Nor shalt thou tell thy name to anyone. 
And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a 

(day. 

For so the Queen believed that when her 

(son 
Beheld his only way to glory lead 
Low down thro' villain kitchen-vassalage. 
Her own true Gareth wastoo prince) y-proud 
To pass thereby ; so should he rest w'ith her. 
Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. 

Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied, 
'The thrall in person may be free in soul, 



244 



IDYLLS OF TEE KING. 



And I shall see the jousts. Thy son am I, 
And since tliou art my mother, must obey, 
I therefore yield me freely to thy will ; 
For hence will I, disguised, and hire myself 
To serve with scullions and with kitehen- 

(knaves ; 
Nor tell my name to any — no, not the King.' 

Garetli awhile linger'd. The mother's eye 
Full of the wistful fear that he would go, 
And turning toward him wheresoe'er he 

(turn'd, 
Perplext his outward purpose, till an hour, 
When waken'd by the wind which with full 

(voice 
Swept bellowing thro' the darkness on to 

(dawn, 
He rose, and out of slumber calling two 
That still had tended on him from his birth, 
Before the wakeful mother heard him,went. 

The three were clad like tillers of the soil. 
Southward they set their faces. The birds 

(made 
Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. 
The damp hill-slopes were quicken'd into 

(green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easterday. 

So, when their feet were planted on the 

(plain 
That broaden'd toward the baseof Camelot, 
Far off they saw the silver-misty morn 
Rolling her smoke about the Eoyal mount, 
That rose between the forest and the field. 
At times the summit of the high city flash'd; 
At times the spires and turrets half-way 

(down 
Prick'd thro' the mist ; at times the great 

(gate shone 
Only, that open'd on the field below : 
Anon, the whole fair city had disappear'd. 

Then those who went with Gareth were 

(amazed. 
One crying, 'Let us go no further, lord. 
Here is a city of Enchanters, built ' 
By fairy Kings.' The second echo'dhim, 
'Lord, we have heard from our wise men at 

(home 
To Northward, that this King is not the 

(King, 
But only changeling out of Fairyland, 
Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour.' Then the first again, 



'Lord, there is no such city anywhere, 
But all a vision.' 

Gareth answer'd them 
With laughter, swearing he had glamour 

(enow 
In his ov\^n blood, his princedom, youth and 

(hopes, 
To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; 
So push'd them all unwilling toward the 

(gate. 
And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was 

(lined 
And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away ; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretch'd unter all the cornice and upheld: 
And drops of water fell from either hand ; 
And down from one a sword was hung, 

(froni one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm ; 
And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish ; 
And in the space to left of her, and right, 
Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
Were nothing, so inveteratelyj that men 
Were giddy gazing there ; and over all 
High on the top were those three Queens, 

(the friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. 

Then those with Gareth for so long a space 
Stared at the figures, that at last it seem'd 
The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings 
Began to move, seethe, twine and curl : they 

(call'd 
To Gareth, 'Lord, the gateway is alive.' 

And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes 
So long,that ev'n to him they seem'd to move. 
Out of the city a blast of music peal'd. 
Back from the gate started the three, to 

(whom 
From out thereunder came an ancient man, 
Long-bearded, saying, 'Who be ye, my sons?' 

Then Gareth, 'We be tillers of the soil. 
Who leaving share in furrow come to see 
The glories of our King: but these, my men, 
(Your city moved so weirdly In the mist) 
Boubt if the King be King at all, or come 
From fairyland; and whether this be built 
By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens: 
Or whether there be any city at all, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE. 



245 



Or all a vision : and thi-s music now 
Hath scared them both, but tell thou these 
(the truth.' 

Then that old Seer made answer playing 

(on him 
And saying, 'Son, I have seen the 2:ood ship 

(sail 
Keel upward and. mast downward in the 

(heavens, 
And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air-. 
And here is truth; but'anit please thee not, 
Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. 
For truly, as thou sayest, a Fairy King 
And Fairy Queens have built the city, son ; 
They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft 
Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, 
And built it to the music of their harps, - 
And as thou sayest it is enchanted, son. 
For there is nothing in it as it seems 
Saving the King; tho' some there be that 

(hold 
The King a shadow, and the city real: 
Yet take'thou heed ofhim, for, sothoupass 
Beneath this archway,thenwilt thou become 
A thrall to his enchantments, for the King 
Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame 
A man should not be bound by.yet the which 
No man can keep; but, so thou dread to 

(swear. 
Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide 
Without, among the cattle of the field. 
For, an ye heard a music, like enow 
They arebuilding still,seeing the city is built 
To music, therefore never built at'all. 
And therefore built for ever.' 

Gareth spake 
Anger'd, 'Old Master, reverence thine own 

(beard 
That looks as white as utter truth,and seems 
Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall ! 
Why mockest thou the stranger that hath 

(been 
To thee fair-spoken r' 

But the Seer replied, 
'KnowyenotthentlieRiddlingoftheBards? 
„Confusion, and illusion, andrelation. 
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion?'' 
I mock thee not but as thou mockest me. 
And all that see thee, for thou art not who 
Thou 3eemest,but I know th ee who thou art. 
And now thou goest up to mock the King. 
Who cannot brook the shadow of auv lie.' 



Unmockingly the mocker ending here 
Turn'dto thelright. and past along the plain; 
Whom Gareth TooKiug after said, 'My men, 
Our one white lie sits like a little ghost 

j Here on the thresnold of our enterprise. 

I Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I : 

j Well, we will make amends.' 

j With all good cheer 

j He spake and laugli'd, then enter'd with 

i (his twain 

! Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces 

I And stately, rich in emblem and the work 

i Of ancient kings who did their days in 

! (stone; 

I Which Merlin's hand, the Mage at Arthur's 

j (court, 

! Knowing all arts, had touch'd, and every- 

j (where 

i At Artliur's ordinance, tipt with lessening 

! (peak 

j And pinnacle, and had made it spire to 

I (heaven. 

! And ever and anou a knight would pass 

Outward, or inward to the hull; his arms 
I Clash'd; and the sound was good tu Gareth's 

(ear. 
i And out of bower and casement shyly glan- 
I (ced 

Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of 
'(love; 

And all about a healthful people stept 

As in the presence of a gracious king. 

Then into hall Gareth ascending heard 
A voice, the voice of Arthur, and beheld 
Far over heads in that long-vaulted hall 
The splendour of the presence of the King 
Throned, and delivering doom — and look'd 

(no more — 
But felt his young heart hammering in his 

(ears. 
And thought, 'For this half-shadow of a lie 
The truthful King will doom me when I 

(speak,' 
Yet pressing on, tho' all in fear to find 
S ir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one 
Nor other, but in all the listening eyes 
Of those tall knights, that ranged about the 

(throne, 
Clear honour shining like the dewy star 
Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with 

(pure 
Affection; and the li ht of victory. 
And glory gain'd, and evermore to gain. 



246 



IBFLLS OF THE KING. 



Then came a widow crying to the King, 
'A boon, Sir King ! Thy father, Uther, reft 
Irom my dead lord a field with violence : 
For howsoe'er at first he proffer'd gold, 
Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, 
We yielded not ; and then he reft iis of It 
Perforce, and left us neither gold nor field.' 

Said Arthur, 'Whether would ye ? g(>ld or 

(field?' ^ ^ 

To whom the woman weeping, 'Nay, my 

(lord, 
The field was pleasant inmy husband's eye.' 

And i^rthur, 'Have thy pleasant field 

(again. 
And thrice the gold for Uther's use thereof, 
According to the years. No boon is here, 
But justice, so thy say be proven true. 
Accursed, who from'the wrongs his father 

(did 
Would shape himself a right!' 

And while she past, 
Came yet another widow crying to him, 
'A boon. Sir King! Thine enemy. King, am I. 
With thine own hand thou slewest my dear 

(lord, ^ 

A knight of Uther in the Barons' war, 
When Lot and many another rose and 

(fought 
Against thee, saying thou wert basely born. 
I held with these, and loathe to ask thee 

(aught. 
Yet lo ! my husband's brother had my son 
Thrall'd in his castle, and hath starved him 

(dead ; 
And standeth seized of that inheritance 
Which thou that slewest the sire hast left 

(the son. 
So tho' I scarce can ask it thee for hate, 
Grant me some knight to do the battle 

(for me, 
Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my 

(son.' 

Then strode a good knight forward, cry- 

(ing to him 
*A boon. Sir King! I am her kinsman, I. 
Give me to right her wrong, and slay the 

(man.' 

Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and 

(cried, 
'A boon. Sir King ! ev'n that thou grant her 

(none, 
This railer, that hath mock'd thee in full 

(hail- 



None; or the wholesome boon of gyve and 

(gag.' 

But Arthur, 'We sit, King, to help the 

(wrong'd 
Thro' all our realm. The woman loves her 

(lord. 
Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and 

(hates ! 
The kings of old had doom'd thee to the 

(flames, 
Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee 

(dead, 
And Uther slit thy tongue : but get thee 

(hence — 
Lest that rough humour of the kings of old 
Return upon me ! Thou that art her kin, 
Go likewise ; lay him low and slay him not, 
But bring him here, that I may judge the 

(right, 
According to the justice of the King : 
Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King 
Who lived and died for men, the man shall 

(die. 

Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, 
A name of evil savour in the land, 
Tlie Cornish king. In either hand he bore 
What dazzled all, and shone far-off as shines 
A field of charlock in the sudden sun 
Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, 
Which down he laid before the throne, and 

(knelt, 
Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king. 
Was ev'n upon his way to Camelot ; 
For having heard that Arthur of his grace 
Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, 

(knight. 
And, for himself was of the greater state, 
Being a king, he trusted Iiis'^liege-lord 
Would yield him this large honour all the 

(more; 
So pray'd him well to accept this cloth of 

(gold. 
In token of true heart and fealty. 

Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to 

(rend 
In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. 
An oak-tree smoulder'd there. 'The goodly 

(knight! 
What! shall the shield of Mark stand among 

(these?' 
For, midway down the side of that longhall 
A stately pile, — whereof along the front. 



G ARETE AND L YNETTE. 



247 



Some blazoii'd, some but carven, and some 

(blank, 
There ran a treble range of stony shields, — 
Rose, and high-arching overbrow'd the 

(hearth. 
And under every shield a knight was named : 
For this was Arthur's custom in his hall ; 
When some good knight had done one noble 

(deed, 
His arms were carven only; but if twain 
His arms were blazon'd also ; but if none 
The shield was blank and bare without a 

(sign 
Saving the name beneath ; and Gareth saw 
The shield of Gawain blazon*d rich and 

(bright, 
And Modred's blank as death; and Arthur 

(cried 
To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth. 
'More like are we to reave him of his crown 
Than make him knight because men call 

(him king. 
The kings we found, ye know we stay'd their 

(hands 
From war among themselves, but left them 

(kings ; 
Of whom were any bounteous, merciful. 
Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we 

(enroll'd 
Among us, and they sit within our hall. 
But Mark hath tarnish'd the great name of 

(king, 
As Mark would sully the low state of churl : 
And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold, 
Return, and meet, and hold him from our 

(eyes. 
Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead. 
Silenced for ever— craven — a man of plots. 
Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside am bush • 

(ings — 
iS'o fault of thine: let Kay the seneschal 
Look to thy wants, and sendthee satisfied — 
xiccursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be 

(seen !' 

And many another suppliant crying came 
With noise of ravage wrought by beast and 

(man, 
And evermore a knight would ride away. 

Last Gareth leaning both hands heavily 
Down on the shoulders of tlie twain, his 

(men, 
Approach'd between them toward the King, 

(and ask'd. 



'A boon,SirKiug (his voice was all ashamed). 
For see ye not how weak and hungerworn 
I seem — leaning on these ? grant me to serve 
For meat and drink among thy kitchen- 

(knaves 
A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name. 
Hereafter I will fight.' 

To him the King, 
'A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon ! 
But an thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, 
The master of the meats and drinks, be 

(thine.' 

He rose and past ; then Kay, a man of mien 
Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself 
Boot-bitten by white lichen, 

'Lo ye now ! 
This fellow hath broken from some Abbey, 

(where, 
God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow, 
However that might chance! but an he 

(work. 
Like any pigeon will I cram his crop. 
And sleeker shall he shine than any hog.' 

Then Lancelot standing near, 'Sir Sene- 

(schal. 
Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and 

(all the hounds ; 
A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not 

(know : 
Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine, 
High nose, a nostril large and fine,and hands 
Large, fair and tine! — Some young lad's 

(mystery — 
But, or from sheepcot or king's hall, the boy 
Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace, 
Lest he should come to shame thy judging 

(of him.' 

Then Kay, 'What murmurest thou of 

(mystery ? 
Think ye this fellow will poison the King's 

(dish? 
Nay. for he spake too fool-like: mystery ! 
Tut, an the lad were noble, he had ask'd 
For horse and armour : fair and fine, for- 

(sooth ! 
Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands ? but see thou 

(to it 
That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some 

(fine day 
Undo thee not — and leave my man to me.' 

So Gareth all for glory underwent 
The sooty yoke of kitchen vassal age j 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Ate witli youiHi; lads liis portion by the door, 
And couch'd at niglit with grimy kitchen- 

(knaves. ^ . 

And Lancelot ever spake pleasantly, 
But Kay the seneschal who loved him not 
Would hustle and harry him,and labour him 
Beyond his comrade of the liearth, and set 
To turn the broach, draw water, or hew 

(wood. 
Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bow'd himself 
With all obedience to the King, and wrought 
All kind of service with a noble ease 
That graced the lowliest act in doing it. 
And when the thralls had talk among them- 

(selves, 
And one would praise the love that linkt 

(the King 
And Lancelot — how the King had saved his 

(life 
In battle twice, and Lancelot once the 

(King's — 
For Lancelot was the first in Tournament, 
But Arthur mightiest on the battlefield — 
Gareth was glad. Or if some other told. 
How once the wandering forester at dawn, 
Par over the blue tarns and hazy seas. 
On Caer-Evyri's highest found the King, 
A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake^ 
'He passes to the Isle Avilion, 
He passes and is heal'd and cannot die' — 
Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, 
Then would he whistle rapid as any lark, 
Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud 
That first they mock'd, but, after, reveren- 

(ced him. 
Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale 
Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling 

(way 
Thro' twenty folds of twisted dragon, held 
All in a gap-mouth'd circle his eood mates 
Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, 
Charm'd-, till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would 

(come 
Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind 
Among dead leaves,and drive them all apart. 
Or when the thralls had sport among them- 

(selves, 
So there were any trial of mastery, 
He, by two yards in casting bar or stone 
Was counted best ; and if there chanced a 

(joust, 
So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go. 
Would hurry thither, and when he saw the 

(knights 



Clash like tlie coming and retiring wave, 
And the spear spring, and good horse reel, 

(the l)oy 
Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. 

So for a month he wrought among the 

(thralls; 
But in the weeks that followed, the good 

(Queen, 
Repentant of the word she made him swear, 
And saddening in her childless castle, sent. 
Between the increscent and decrescent 

(moon, 
Arms for her son, and loosed him from his 

(vow. 

This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot 
With whom he used to play at tourney once. 
When both were children, and in lonely 

(haunts 
Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, 
And each at either dash from either end — 
Shame never made girl redder than Gareth 

(joy. 
He laugh'd ; he sprang. 'Out of the smoke, 

(at once 
I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee — 
These news be mine, none other's — nay, the 

(King's— . 
Descend into the city:' whereon he sought 
The King alone, and found, and told him all. 

'I have stagger'd thy strong Gawain in a 

(tilt 
For pastime ; yea, he said it, joust can I. 
Make me thy knight — in secret ! let my name 
Be hidd'n, and give me the first quest, I 

(spring 
Like flame from ashes.* 

Here the King's calm eye 
Fell on, and check'd, and made him flush, 

(and bow 
Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answer'd him, 
'Son, the good mother let me know thee 

(here. 
And sent her wish that I would yield thee 

(thine. 
Make thee my knight ? my knights are sworn 

(to vows 
Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness. 
And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, 
And uttermost obedience the King.* 

Then Gareth, lightly springing from his 

(knees, 
'My King, for hardihood lean promise tliee. 



GAUETH AND LTNETT:E. 



249 



i'or uttermost obedieuce make demand 
Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal, 
Ivo mellow master of the meats and drinks ! 
And as for love, God wot, I love not yet, 
But love I shall, God willing.' 

And the King — 
'Make thee my knight in secret? yea, hut he, 
Our noblest brother, and our truest man, 
And one with me in all, he needs must 

(know.' 

'Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lance- 

(lot know, 
Thy noblest and thy truest ! 

And the King — 
'But wherefore would ye men should won- 

(der at you ? 
2s ay, rather for the sake of me, their King, 
And the deed's sake my knighthood do the 

(deed, 
Than to be noised of.' 

Merrily Gareth ask'd, 
'Have I not earn'd my cake in baking of it? 
Let be my name until I make my name I 
My deeds will speak : it is but for a day.' 
So with a kindly hand on Gareth's arm 
Smiled the great King, and half- unwillingly 
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him. 
Then, after summoning Lancelot prively, 
'I have given him the first quest: he is not 

(proven. 
Look therefore when he calls for this in hall, 
Thou get to horse and follow him far away. 
Cover the lions on thy shield, and see 
Tar as thou mayest, he be nor ta'en nor slain. 

Then that same day there past into the hall 
A damsel of high lineage, and a brow 
May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom, 
Hawk-eyesj and lightly washer slender nose 
Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower ; 
She into hall past with her page and cried, 
'0 King, for thou hast driven the foe with- 
(out, 
See to the foe within ! bridge, ford, beset 
By bandits, everyone that owns a tower 
The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there? 
Rest would I not, Sir King, and I were king, 
Till ev'n the lonest hold were all as free 
From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth 
From that blest blood it is a sin to spill,' 

'Comfort thyself,' said Arthur, 'I nor mine 
B.est : so my knighthood keep the vows they 
(swore, 



The wastest luoorland of our realm shall be 
Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall. 
What is thy name? thy need?' 

'My name ?' she said — 
'Lynette my name; noble; my need, a knight 
To combat for my sister, Lyonors, 
A lady of high lineage, of great lands. 
And comely, yea, and comelier than myself. 
She lives in Castle Perilous : a river 
Runs in three loops about her living-place; 
And o'er it are three passings, and three 

(knights 
Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth 
And of that four the mightiest, holds lier 

(stay'd 
In her own castle and so besieges her 
To break her will, and make her wed with 

(him: 
And but delays his purport till thou send 
To do the battle with him, thy chief man 
Sir Lancelot whom he trusts to overthrow. 
Then wed, with glory ; but she will not wed 
Save whom she loveth, or a holy life. 
Isow therefore have I come for Lancelot.' 

Then Arthur mindful of Sir G aretli ask'd, 
'Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush 
All wrongers of the Realm. But say, these 

(four, 
AVho be they ? What the fashion of the men?' 

'They be of foolish fashion, Sir King, 
The fashion of that old knight-errantry 
Who ride abroad and do but what they will; 
Courteous or bestial from the moment, such 
As have nor law nor king ; and three of these 
Proud in their fantasy call themselves the 

(Day, 
Morning-Star, and Xoon-Sun, andEvening- 

(Star, 
Being strong fools ; and never a whit more 

(wise 
The foui'th, who alway rideth arm'd in black, 
A huge man-beast of boundless savagery. 
He names himself the !Xight and oftener 

(Death 
And wears a helmet mounted with a skull. 
And bears a skeleton figured on his arms, 
To show that who may slay or scape thethree 
Slain by himself shall enter endless night. 
And alUhese four be fools, but mighty men, 
And therefore am I come for Lancelot.' 

Hereat Sir Gareth call'd from where he rose, 
A liead with kindling eyes ubove the throng, 



250 



WILLS OF THE KING. 



*A boon, Sir King — this quest!' then — for he 

(mark'd 
Kay near him groaning like a wounded 

(bull- 
Yea, King, thou knowestthy kitchen-knave 

(am I, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I, 
And lean topple over a hundred such. 
Thy promise, King/ and Arthur glancing at 

(him. 
Brought down a momentary brow. 'Rough, 

(sudden, 
And pardonable,, worthy to be knielit — 
Go therefore,' and all hearers were amazed. 

But on the damsel's forehead shame, 

(pride, wrath 
Slew the May-white : she lifted either arm, 
'Fie on thee, King! I ask'a for thy chief 

(knight, 
And thou hast given me but a kitchen- 

(knave.' 
Then ere a man in hall could stay her, 

(turn'd. 
Fled down the lane of access to the King, 
Took horse, descended the slope street, and 

(past 
The weird white gate, and paused without, 

(beside 
The field of tourney, murmuring 'kitchen- 

(knave.* 

Now two great entries open'd from the 

(hall, 
At one end one, that gave upon a range 
Of level pavement where the King would 

(pace 
At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood. 
And down from this a lordly stairway sloped 
Till lost in blowin* trees and tops of towers. 
And out by this main doorway pasttheKing. 
But one was counter to the heart, and rose 
High that the highest-crested helm could 

(ride 
Therethro' nor graze: and by this entry fled 
The damsel in her wrath, and on to this 
Sir Gareth strode, and saw without the door 
King Arthur's gift, the worth of half a town, 
A warhorse of the best, and near it stood 
The two that out of north liad follow'd him: 
This bare a maiden shield,a casque; that held 
The horse, the spear; whereat Sir Gareth 

(loosed 
A cloak that dropt from collar-bone to heel, 
A cloth of roughest web, and cast it down, 



And from it like a fuel -smothered fire, 
That lookt half-dead, brake bright, and 

(flash'd as those 
Dull-coated things, that making slide apart 
Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there 

(burns 
k jewelFd harness, ere they pass and fly. 
So Gareth ere he parted flash'd in arms. ■ 
Then while he donn'd the helm, and took 

(the shield 
And mounted horse and graspt a spear, of 

(grain 
Storm-strengthen'd on a windv site, and 

(tipt 
With trenchant steel, around him slowly 

(prest 
The people, and from out of kitchen came 
The thralls in throng, and seeing who had 

(work'd 
Lustier than any, and whom they could but 

(love, 
Mounted in arms, threw up their caps and 

(cried, 
'God bless the King, and all his fellowship !' 
And on thro' lanes of shouting Gareth rode 
Down the slope street, and past without the 

(gate. 

So Gareth past with joy; but as the cur 
Pluckt from the cur he fights with, ere his 

(cause 
Be cool'd by fighting, follows, being named, 
His owner, but remembers all, and growls 
Remembering, so Sir Kay beside toe door 
Mutter'd in scorn of Gareth whom he used 
Tho harry and hustle. 

'Bound upon a quest 
With horse and arms — the King hath past 

(his time — 
My scullion knave! Thralls to your work 

(again, 
For an your fire be low ye kindle mine ! 
Will there be dawn in West and eve in East? 
Begone ! — my knave ! — belike and like enoAV 
Some old head-blow not heeded in his youth 
So shook his wits they wander in his prime — 
Crazed ! How the villain lifted up his voice, 
Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen- 

(knave. 
Tut : he was tame and meek enow with me, 
Till peacock'd up with Lancelot's noticing. 
Well — I will after my loud knave, and learn 
Whether he know me for his master yet. 
Out of the smoke he came, and so my lauc€ 



GARETE AND LYNETTE. 



251 



Huld, by God's grace, lie shall into the 

(mire — 
Thence, if the King awaken from his craze, 
Into the smoke again.* 

But Lancelot said, 
'Kay, wherefore will ye go against the King, 
For that did never he whereon ye rail, 
But ever meekly served the King in thee? 
Abide : take counsel ; for this lad is great 
And lusty, and knowing both of lance and 

(sword.' 
'Tut, tell not me,' said Kay, 'ye are overfine 
To mar stout knaves with foolish courte- 

(sies.' 
Then mounted, on thro' silent faces rode 
Down the slope city,and out beyond the gate. 

But by the field of tourney lingering yet 
Mutter'd the damsel, 'Wherefore did the 

(King 
Scorn me? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at 

(least 
Me miglit have yielded to me one of those 
Who tilt for lady's love and glory here, 
Hather than — sweet heaven! fie upon 

(him — 
His kitchen-knave.' 

To whom Sir Gareth drew 
(x\nd there were none but few goodlier than 

he) 
Shining in arms, 'Damsel, the quest is mine. 
Lead, and I follow.' She thereat, as one 
That smells a foul-flesh'd agaric in the holt, 
And deems it carrion of somewoodland thing 
Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose 
With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, 

CHence! 
Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. 
And look who comes behind, for there was 

(Kay. 
'Knowest thou not me? thy master? I am 

(Kay. 
We lack thee by the hearth. 

And Gareth to him, 
'Master no more ! too well I know thee, ay — 
The most ungentle knight in Arthur's hall.' 
'Have at thee then,' said Kay: theyshock'd, 

(and Kay 
Fell shoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, 
'Lead, and I follow,' and fast away she fled. 

But after sod and shingle ceased to fly 
Behind her, and the heart of her good horse 
Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, 
Perforce she stay'd, and overtaken spoke. 



'What doest thou, scullion, in ray follow- 

(ship? 
Deem'st thou that I accept thee aught the 

(more 
Or love thee better, that by some device 
Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness, 
Thou hast overthrown and slain thy mas- 

(ter— thou !— 
Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon! — to 

(me 
Thou smellest all of kitchen as before.' 

'Damsel,' Sir Gareth answer'd gently, 'say 
Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, 
I leave not till I finish this fair quest, 
Or die therefore.' 

'Ay, wilt thou finish it? 
Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks ! 
The listening rogue hath caught the manner 

(of it. 
But, knave, anon thou shalt be met with, 

(knave. 
And then by such a one that thou for all 
The kitchen brewis that was ever supt 
Shalt not once dare to look him in the face.' 

'I shall assay,' said Gareth with a smile 
That madden'd her, and away she flash'd 

(again 
Down thelong avenues of a boundless wood. 
And Gareth following was again beknaved. 

'Sir Kitchen-knave, I have miss'd the only 

(way 
Where Arthur's men are set along the wood; 
The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves : 
If both be slain, I am rid of thee ; but yet. 
Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of 

(thine? 
Fight, an thou canst : I have miss'd the only 

(way.' 

So till the dusk that follow'd evensong 
Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ; 
Then after one long slope was mounted,saw, 
Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand 

(pines 
A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink 
To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere. 
Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, 
Under the half-dead sunset glared; and 

(shouts 
Ascended, and there brake a servingman 
Flying from out of the black wood, and 

(crying, 



252 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



'They have bound my lord to cast him in the 

(mere.' 
Then Gareth, 'Bound am I to right the 

(wrong'd, 
But straitlier bound ami to bide with thee.* 
And when the damsel spake contemptu^ 

(ously, 
'Lead and I follow,' Gareth cried again, 
'Follow, I lead!' so down among the pines 
He plunged ; and there, blackshadow'd nigh 

(the mere, 
And mid-thigh-deep in bulrushes and reed, 
Saw six tall men haling a seventh along, 
A stone about his neck to drown him in it. 
Three with good blows he quieted, but three 
Fled thro' the pines; and Gareth loosed the 

(stone 
From off his neck, then in the mere beside 
Tumbled it ; oilily bubbled up the mere. 
Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free 

(feet 
Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur's friend. 

'Well that ye came, or else these caitiff 

(rogues 
Had wreak'd themselves on me; good cause 

(is theirs 
To hate me, for my wont hath ever been 
To catch my thief, and then like vermin here 
Drown him,and with a stone about hisneck; 
And under this wan water many of them 
Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, 
And rise, and flickering in a grimly light 
Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved 

(a life 
Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this 

(wood. 
And fain would I reward thee worshipfully. 
What guerdon will ye?' 

Gareth sharply spake, 
'None! for the deed's sake have I done the 

(deed. 
In uttermost obedience to the King. 
But will ye yield this damsel harbourage?' 

Whereat the Baron saying, I well believe 
Ye be of Arthur's Table,' a light laugh 
Broke from Lynette, 'Ay, truly of a truth, 
And in a sort, being Arthur's kitchen- 

(knave! — 
But deem not I accept thee aught the more, 
Scullion, for running sharply with thy spit 
Down on a rout of craven foresters. 
A thresher with his flail had scatter'd them, 
Nay— for thou smellest of the kitchen still. 



But an this lord will yield us harbourage. 
Well.' 

So she spake. A league beyond the wood. 
All in a full-fair manor and a rich. 
His towers where that day a feast had been 
Held in high hall, and many a viand left, 
And many a costly cate, received the three 
And there they placed a peacock in his pride 
Before the damsel, and the Baron set 
Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. 

'Meseems, that here is much discourtesy, 
Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at my side, 
Hear me — this morn I stood in Arthur'sha.11^ 
And pray'd theKing would grantmeLancelot 
To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night — 
The last a monster unsubduable 
Of any save of him for whom I call'd — 
Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen- 

(knave, 
"The quest is mine; thy kitchen-knave ami, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am 

(I." 
Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, 
"Go therefore," and so gives the quest to 

(him — 
Him — here — a villain fitter to stick swine 
Than ride abroad redressing women's wrong, 
Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman.' 

Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the 

(lord 
Now look'd at one and now at other, left 
The damsel by the peacock in his pride, 
And, seating Gareth at another board. 
Sat down beside him, ate and then began. • 

'Friend, whether ye be kitchen-knave, or 

(not,' ■ 
Or whether it be the maiden's fantasy, 
And whether she be mad, or else the King, 
Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, 
I ask not: but thou strikest a strong stroke, 
For strong thou art and goodly therewithal, 
And saver of my life; and therefore now. 
For here be mighty men to j oust with, weigh 
Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back 
To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. 
Thy pardon ; I but speak for thine avail. 
The saver of my life.' 

And Gareth said, 
'Full pardon, but I follow up the quest, 
Despite of Day and Night and Death and 
(Hell.' 



GJRETH AND LYNETTE. 



253 



So when, next morn, the lord whose life he 

(saved 
Had, some brief space, convey'd them on 

(their way 
And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth 

(spake, 
'Lead and I follow.' Haughtily she replied, 

'I fly no more: I allow thee for an hour. 
Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, 
In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks 
Some ruth is mine for thee. Back wilt thou, 

(fool? 
For hard hy here is one will overthrow 
And slay thee ; then will I to court again, 
And shame the King for only yielding me 
My champion from the ashes of his hearth.' 

To whom Sir Gareth answer'd courteously, 
'Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. 
Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find 
My fortunes all as fair as hers, who lay 
Among the ashes and wedded theKing's son.' 

Then to the shore of one of those long loops 
Wherethro' the serpent river coil'd, they 

(came. 
Rough-thicketed were the banks and steep ; 

(the stream 
Full, narrow ; this a bridge of single arc 
Took at a leap ; and on the further side 
Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold 
In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lily in hue. 
Save that the dome was purple, and above, 
Crimson, a slender banneret fluttering. 
And therebefore the lawless warrior paced 
Unarm'd, and calling, 'Damsel, is this he, 
The champion ye have brought from Ar- 

(thur's hall, 
For whom we let thee pass ? 'Nay, nay,' she 

(said, 
'Sir Morning-Star. The King in utter scorn 
Of thee and thy much folly hath sent thee 

(here 
His kitchen-knave: and look thou to thyself: 
See that he fall not on thee suddenly, 
And slay thee unarm'd: he is not knight but 

(knave.' 

Thenat his call. '0 daughters of the Dawn, 
And servants of the Morning-Starapproach, 
Arm me,' from out the silken curtain-folds 
Bare-footedand bare-headed three fair girls 
In gilt and rosy raiment came : their feet 
In dewy grasses glisten'd; and the hair 
All over glanced with dewdrop or with gem 



Like sparkles in the stone Avanturiue. 
These arm*d him in blue arms, and gave a 

(shield 
Blue also, and thereon the morning star. 
And Gareth silent gazed upon the knight, 
"Who stood a moment; ere his horse was 

(brought. 
Glorying; and in the stream beneath him, 

(shone, 
Immiugled with Heaven's azure waveringly, 
The gay pavilion and the naked feet. 
His arms, the rosy raiment, and the star. 

Then she that watch'd him, 'Wherefore 

(stare ye so? 
Thou shakest in thy fear: there yet is time: 
Flee down the valley before he get to horse. 
Who will cry shame? Thou art not knight 

(but knave.* 

Said Gareth, 'Damsel, whether knave or 

(knight, 
Far liefer had I fight a score of times 
Than hear thee so missay me and revile. 
Fair words were best for him who fights for 

(thee ; 
But truly foul are better, for they send 
That strength of anger thro' mine arms, I 

(know 
That I shall overthrow him.' 

And he that bore 
The star, being mounted, cried from o'er the 

(bridge, 
'A kitchen-knave, and sent in scorn of me ! 
Such fight not I, but answer scorn with 

(scorn. 
For this were shame to do him further wrong 
Than set him on his feet, and take his horse 
And arms, and so return him to the King. 
Come, therefore, leave thy lady lightly, 

(knave. 
Avoid: for it beseemeth not a knave 
To ride with such a lady/ 

'Dog, thou liest. 
I spring from loftier lineage than thine own .' 
He spake; and all at fiery speed the two 
Shock'd on the central bridge, and either 

(spear 
Bent but not brake, and either knight at 

(once, 
Hurl'd as a stone from out of a catapult 
Beyond his horse's crupper and the bridge. 
Fell, as if dead ; but quickly rose and drew. 
And Gareth lash'd so fiercely with his brand 



254 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



He drave his euemy bnckward down the 

(bridge, 
The damsel crying, 'Well-stricken, kitchen- 

(knave!' 
Till Gareth's shield was cloven; but one 

(stroke 
Laid him that clove it grovelling on the 

(ground. 

Then cried the fall'n, 'Take not my life : 

(I yield.' 
And Gareth, 'So this damsel ask it of me 
Good — I accord it easily as a grace.' 
She reddening, 'Insolent scullion: I of thee ? 
I bound to thee for any favour ask'd !' 
'Then shall he die.' And Gareth there un- 

(laced 
His helmet as to slay him, but she shriek'd, 
'Ee not so hardy, scullion, as to slay 
One nobler than thyself."I)amsel, thy charge 
Is an abounding pleasure to me. Knight, 
Thy life is thine at her command. Arise 
xind quickly pass to Arthur's hall, and say 
His kitchen-knave hath sent thee. See thou 

(crave 
His pardon for thy breaking of his laws. 
Myself, when I return, will plead for thee. 
Thy shield is mine — farewell; and, damsel, 

(thou, 
Lead, and I follow.' 

And fast away she fled. 
Then when he came upon her, spake, 'Me- 

(thought, 
Knave, when I watch'd thee striking on the 

(bridge 
The savour of thy kitchen came upon me 
A little faintlier : but the wind hath changed: 
I scent it twentyfold.' And then she sang, 
,,0 morning star" (not that tall felon there 
Whom thou by sorcery or unhappiness 
Or some device, hast foully overthrown), 
,,.0 morning star that smilest in the blue, 
6 star, my morning dream hath proven true. 
Smile sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled 

(on me." 

'But thou begone, take counsel, and away. 
For hard by here is one that guards a ford — 
The second brother in their fool's parable — 
Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. 
Care not for shame : thou art not knight but 

(knave.' 

To whom Sir Gareth answer'd, laughingly, 
'Parables ? Hear a parable of the knave. 



When 1 was kitchen-knave among the rest 
Fierce was the hearth, and one of my co- 

(mates 
Own'd a rough dog, to whom he cast his 

(coat, 
„ Guard it," and there was none to meddle 

(with it. 
And such a coat art thou, and thee the King 
Gave me to guard, and such a dog am I, 
To worry, and not to flee— and— knight or 

(knave — 
The knave that doth thee service as full 

(knight 
Is all as good, meseems, as any knight 
Toward thy sister's freeing.' 

'xiy. Sir Knave ! 
Ay, knave, because thou strikest as a knight, 
Being but knave, I hate thee all the more.' 

'Fair damsel, ye should worship me the 
(more. 
That, being but knave, I throw thine ene- 
(mies.' 

'Ay, ay,' she said^ 'but thou shalt meet 
(thy match.' 

So when they touch'd the second river- 

(loop. 
Huge on a huge red horse, and all in mail 
Burnish'd to blinding, shone the Noonday 

(Sun 
Beyond a raging shallow. As if the flower, 
That blows a globe of after arrowlets, 
Ten thousand-fold had grown, flash'dthe 

(fierce shield. 
All sun ; and Gareth's eyes had flying blots 
Before them when he turned from watching 

(him. 
He from beyond the roaring shallow roar'd,. 
'What doest thou, brother, in my marches 

(here r' 
And she athwart the shallow shrill'd again, 
'Here is a kitchen-knave from Arthur's hall 
Hath overthrown thy brother, and hath his 

(arms.' 
'Ugh !' cried the Sun, and vizoring up a red 
And cipher face of rounded foolishness, 
Push'd horse across the foamings of the ford, 
Whom Gareth met midstream : no room was 

(there 
For lance or tourney-skill : four strokes they 

(struck 
With sword, and these were mighty ; the 

(new knight 



GARETH AND LYNETTE. 



Had fear he midit be shamed ; but as the 

(Sun 
Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the 

(fifth, 
The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, 

(the stream 
Descended, and the Sun was washed away. 

Then Gareth hiid his lance athwart the 

(ford ; 
So drew him home 5 but he that fought no 

(more. 
As being all bone-batter'd on the rock, 
Yielded ; and Gareth sent him to the King. 
'Myself when I return will plead for thee. 
Lead, and I follow.' Quietly she led. 
'Hath not the good wind, damsel, changed 

(again? 
'Nay, not a point : nor art thou victor here. 
There lies a ridge of slate across the ford ; 
His horse thereon stumbled — ay, for I saw it. 

',,0 Sun" (not this strong fool whom thou, 

(Sir Knave, 
Hast overthrown thro* mere unhappiness), 
.,0 Sun, that wakenest all bliss or pain, 
moon, that layest all to sleep again, 
Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled 

(onme.'' 

'What knowest thou of lovesoug or of 

(love ? 
Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wertnoblyborn, 
Thou hast a pleasant presence. Yea, per- 

(chance, — 

„0 dewy flowers that open to the sun, 
dewy flowers that close when day is done, 
Elow sweetly: twice my love hath smiled 

(on me." 

'What knowest thou of flowers^ except, 

(belike. 
To garnish meats with? hath not our good 

(King 
W' ho lent me thee, the flower of kitchendom, 
A foolish love for flowers? what stick ye 

(round 
The pasty? wherewithal deck the boai-'s 

(head ? 
Flowers? may, the boar hath rosemaries 

(and bay. 

',/0 birds, that warble to the morning sky, 
birds that warble as the day goes by. 
Sing sweetly; twice my love hath smiled 

(on me." 



'What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, 

(merle, 
Linnet? what dream ye when they utter forth 
May-music growing with the growing light, 
Their sweet sun-worship? these be for the 

(snare 
(So runs thy fancy) these be for the spit. 
Larded thy'last, except thou turn and fly. 
There stands the third fool or their allegory.' 

For there beyond a bridge of treble bow, 
All in a rose-red from the west, and all 
Naked it seem'd, and glowing in the broad 
Deep-dimpled current underneath, the 

(knight, 
That named himself the Star of Evening, 

(stood. 

And Gareth, 'Wherefore waits the mad- 

(man there 
Naked in open dayshine?' 'Nay,' she cried, 
'Not naked, only wrapt in harden'd skins 
That fit him like his own ; and so ye cleave 
His armour off him, these will turn the 

(blade.' 

Then the third brother shouted o'er the 

(bridge, 
'0 brother-star, why shine ye here so low ? 
Thy ward is higher up ; but have ye slain 
The damsel's champion ?' and the damsel 

(cried, 

'No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's 

(heaven 
With all disaster unto thine and thee ! 
For both thy younger brethren have gone 

(down 
Before this youth ; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; 
Art thou not old?' 

'Old, damsel, old and hard 
Old, with the might and breath of twenty 

(boys.' 
Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! 
But that same strength which threw in 

(Morning-Star 
Can throw the Evening.' 

Then that other blew 
A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 
'Approach and arm me!' With slow steps 

(from out 
An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stain'd 
Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came. 
And arm'd him in old arms, and brought 

(a helm 
With but a drying evergreen for crest, 



256 



And gave a sliield whereon theStar of Even 
Hal -tarnisli'd and half-bright, his emblem. 

(shone. 
But when it glitter'd o'er the saddle-bow, 
Ihev madly hurPd togetlier on the bridge • 
And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew 
Ihere met him drawn, and overthrew liim 

(again. 
But up like fire he started : aiid as oft 
As Crareth brought him grovelling on his 

(knees. 
So many a time he vaulted up again ; 
lill Gareth pan ted hard, and his o-reat heart 
ioredoommgall his trouble w^asin vain 
Labour d within him, for he seem'd as one 
inat ail in later, sadder age beo-ins 
To war against ill uses of life 
But these from all his life arise, and cry, 

liiou hast made us lords, and canst not put 
(us down!' ^ 

He half despairs; so Gareth seem'd to strike 
Vainly the damsel clamouring all the while, 
Weil done, knave-knight, well-stricken, 
(good knight-knave— 

knave, as noble as any of all the knights- 
Shame me not, shame me not. I have pro- 

(phesied — ^ 

Strike, thou art worthyof theTableUound— 
His arms are old, he trusts the harden'd 

(skin — 

Strike—strike— the wind will never change 

(again.' *= 

And (Jareth hearing ever stronglier smote, 
And hew'd great pieces of his armour off 

(mm. 
But lash'd in vain aeainst t>he harden'd skin 
And could not wholly bring him under,more 
Ihan loud Southwesterns, rolling rid^e on 

(ridge, '^ 

The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and 

(springs ^ 

For ever; till at length Sir Gareth's brand 
Clash d his, and brake it utterly to the hilt 
i have thee now/ but forth that other 

(sprang, 
And,all unknightlike,writhedhis wiry arms 
Around him, till he felt, despite his mail, 
•Strangled, but straining ev'n his uttermost 
Last, and so hurl'd him headlong o'er the 

(bridge 
Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried, 
Lead, and Hollow.' 
-r , 1 , But the damsel said, 

1 lead no longer; ride thou at my side; 



IDILLS OF THE KING. 



Thou art thekingliestofail kitchen-knave$ 

S/0 trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain 

O rainbow with three colours after rain ' 

Shine sweetly: thrice my love hath smiledi 

(on me." 

'Sir,-and, good faith, I fain had added- 

(xvnignt, 
But that I heard thee call thyself a knave — 
Miamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled ' 
Missaid thee; noble I am; and thought'the 

(King * 

Scorn'd me and mine; and now thy pardon, 

(iriend, *' ^ * 

For thou hast ever answer'd courteously 
And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal 
As any of Arthur's best, but, being knave 
Hast mazed my wit: I marvel what thou 

(art. 

'Damsel,' he said, ^^e be not all to blame 
paving that ye mistrusted our good Kino- 
Would handle scorn, or yield thee, askinc^ 

(one - °' 

Not fit to cope thy quest. Ye said vour say- 
Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth' I 

(hold 
He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor 

(meet 
To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets 
His heart be stirr'd with any foolish heat 
At any gentle damsel's waywardness 
Shamed ? care not ! thy foul sayings fought 

(forme: ' " 

Andseeingnowthywordsarefair,methinks, 
There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his 

(great self. 
Hath force to quell me.' 

T,,, ^, , , ^^igh upon that hour 

When the lone hern forgets his melancholy 
Lets down his other leg, and stretching, 

(dreams 
Of goodly supper in the distant pool. 
Then turn'd the noble damsel smiling at 

(him, 
And told him of a cavern hard at hand, 
W here bread and baken meats and good red 

(wine 
Of Southland, which the Lady Lyonors 
Had,sent her coming champion,waited him. 

Anon they past a narrow comb w^hcrein 
Were slabs of rock with figures, kniirhts on 
(horse 



GARETE AND LTNBTTE. 



257 



Sculptured, aud deckt in slowly-waning 

(hues. 
'Sir Knave, my kniglit, a hermit once was 

(here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashion'd on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man. 
And yon four fools have suck'd their alle- 

(gory 
From these damp walls, and taken but the 

(form. 
Know ye not these?' and Gareth lookt and 

(read — 
In letters like to those the vexillary 
Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming 

(Gelt— 
'Phosphorus,' then 'Meredies' — 'Hespe- 

(aus'— 
'Nox' — 'Mors,' beneath five figures, armed 

(men. 
Slab after slab, their faces forward all. 
And running down the Soul, a Shape that 

(fled 
With broken wings, torn raiment and loose 

(hair. 
For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 
Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, 
Who comes behind? 

For one — delay 'd at' first 
Thro' helping back the dislocated Kay 
ToCamelotjthen by what thereafter chanced, 
The damsel's headlong error thro' the 

(wood — 
Sir Lancelot, having swum the river-loops — 
His blue shield-lions covered — softly cfrew 
Behind the twain, and when he saw the star 
Gleam, on Sir Gareth's turning to him cried, 
'Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my 

(friend.' 
And Gareth crying prick'd against the cry : 
But when they closed — in a moment — at 

(one touch 
Of that skill'd spear, the wonder of the 

(world — 
Went sliding down so easily, and fell. 
That when he found the grass within his 

(hands 
He laugh'd; the laughter jarr'd upon Ly- 

(nette : 
Harshly she ask'd him, 'Shamed and over- 

(thrown. 
And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave. 
Why laugh ye? that ye blew your boast in 

(vain V 
'Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son 



Of Old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent, 
xind victor of the bridges and the ford, 
And knight of Arthur, here lie thrown by 

(whom 
I know not, all thro' mere unhappiness — 
Device and sorcery and unhappiness — 
Out, sword; we are tlirown '' And Lancelot 

(answer'd, Trince, 

Gareth — thro' the mere unhappiness 

Of one who came to help thee not to harm, 
Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole, 
As on the day when Arthur knighted him.' 

Then Gareth, 'Thou— Lancelot!— thine 

(the hand 
That threw me? And some chance to mar 

(the boast 
Thy brethren of thee make — which could 

(not chance — 
Had sent thee down before a lesser spear, 
Shamed had 1 been and sad — Lancelot — 

(thou!' 

Whereat the maiden, petulant, 'Lancelot, 
Why came ye not, w^hen call'd ? and where- 

(fore now 
Come ye, not call'd? I gloried in my knave, 
Who being still rebuked, would answer still 
Courteous as anv knight— but now, if 

(knight, 
The marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and 

(trick'd. 
And only wondering wherefore play'd upon: 
And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn'd. 
Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall. 
In Arthur's presence ? Knight, knave prince 

(and fool, 

1 hate thee and for ever.' 

And Lancelot said, 
'BlessedbethoUjSir Gareth ! knight art thou 
To the King'sbest wish. damsel, beye wise 
To call him shamed, who is but overthrown? 
Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a 

(time. 
Victor from vanquish'd issues at the last. 
And overthrower from being overthrown. 
With sword w^e have not striven; and thy 

(good horse 
And thou are weary ; yet not less I felt 
Thy manhood thro' that wearied lance of 

(thine. 
Well hast thou done; for all the stream is 

(freed. 
And thou hast wreak'd his justice on his 

(foes, 



258 



IDYLLS OF TEE KING. 



And wlien reviledjiiastanswer'd graciously, 
And makest merry, when overthro\\'n. Prin- 

(ce, Knight, 
Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Table 

(Round!' 

And tlien whenturningloLynettehetold 
The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said, 
'Av well — av well — for worse than being 

(fool'd 
Of others, is to fool one's self. A cave, 
Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and 

(drinks 
And forage for the horse, and flint for fire. 
13ut all about it flies a honeysuckle. 
Seek, till we find.' And when they sought 

(and found. 
Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life 
Past into sleep ; on whom the maiden gazed. 
'Sound sleep be thine ! sound cause to sleep 

(hast thou. 
Wake lusty I Seem I not as tender to him 
As any mother? Ay, but such a one 
As all'day long hath rated at her child, 
And vext his day, but blesses him asleep — 
Good lord, how* sweetly smells the houey- 

(suckle 
In the hush'd night, as if the world were 

(one 
Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness 1 
Lancelot, Lancelot' — and she clapt her 

(hands — 
'lull merry am I to find my goodly knave 
Iskkightand noble. See now, sworn have I, 
Else yon black felon had not let me pass, 
To bring theeback to do the battle with him. 
Thus an thou goest, he will fight thee first ; 
Who doubts thee victor? so will my knight- 

(knave 
Miss the full flower of this accomplish- 

(ment.* 

Said Lancelet, Teradventure he, ye name. 
May know my shield. Let Gareth, an he 

(will. 
Change his for mine, and take my charger, 

(fresh. 
Not to be spurr'd, loving the battle as well 
As he that rides him.' 'Lancelot-like,' she 

(said, 
'Courteous in this, Lord Lancelot, as in all.' 

And Gareth, wakening fiercely clutch'd 

(the shield; 
'Ramp ye lance-splintering lions, on whom 

(all spears 



Are rotten slicks! ye seem agape to roar! 
Yccn, ramp and roar at leaving of your lord! — 
Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you, 

noble Lancelot, from my hold on these 
Streams virtue— fire— thro' one that will 

(not shame 
Even the shadow of Lancelot under sliield. 
Hence .-let us go.' 

Silent the silent field. 
They traversed. Arthur's harp tho'summer- 

(wau, 
In counter motion to the clouds, allured 
The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. 
A star shot: 'Lo,' said Gareth, 'the foe falls!' 
An owl wlioopt: 'Hark the victor pealing 

(there!' 
Suddenly she that rode upon his left 
Clung to the shield that Lancelot lent him, 

(crying, 
'Yield, yield him this aeain: 'tis he must 

(fight: 

1 curse the tongue that all thro' yesterday 
Heviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot 

- (now 
To lend thee horse and shield : wonders ye 

(have done; 
Miracles ye cannot : here is glory enow 
In having flung the three: Iseethemaim'd, 
Mangled: I swear thou canst not fling the 

(fourth." 

'And wherefore, damsel? tell me all ye 

(know. 
Ye cannot scare me ; nor rough face, or voice, 
Brute bulk of limb, or boundless savagery 
Appal me from the quest.' 

'Nay, Prince,' she cried, 
'God wot, I never look'd upon the face, 
Seeing he never rides abroad by day ; 
But watch'd him have I like a phantom pass 
Chilling the night: nor have I heard the 

(voice. 
Always he made his mouthpiece of a page 
Who came and went, and still reported hira 
As closing in himself the strength of ten, 
And when his anger tare him, massacring 
Man, woman, lad and girl- yea, the soft babe! 
Some hold that he hath swalloAv'd infant 

(flesh, 
Monster! prince, I went for Lancelot first, 
The quest is Lancelot's : give him back the 

(shield.' 

Said Gareth laughing, 'An he fight for this, 
Belike he wins it as the better man : 



GABETH AND LYNETTE. 



259 



I Thus— and not else?* 

I But Lancelot on liim urged 

lAll the devisings of their chivalry 

-Where one might meet a mightier than 

(himself; 
ilHow best to manage horse, lance, sword 

(and shield, 
And so fill up the gap where force might fail 
With skill and fineness. Instant were his 

(words. ■ 

Then Gareth, 'Here be rules. I know but 

(one — 
To dash against mine enemy and to win. 
Yet have I watch'd thee victor in the joust, 
And seen thy way' 'Heaven help thee,* 

(sigh'd Lynette. 

Then for a space, and under cloud that 

(grew 
To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they 

(rode 
In converse till she made her palfrey halt, 
Lifted an arm, and softly whisper'd, 'There.* 
And all the three were silent seeing, pitch'd 
Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field, 
A huge pavilion like a mountain peak 
Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge, 
Black, with black banner, and a long black 

(horn 
Beside it hanging; wliich Sir Gareth graspt, 
And so, before the two could hinder him. 
Sent all his heart and breath thro' all the 

(horn. 
Echo*d the walls; a light twinkled ; anon 
Came lights and lights, and once again he 

(blew; 
Whereon were hollow tramplings up and 

(down 
And muffled voice heard, and shadows past; 
Till high above him, circled with her maids, 
The Lady Lyonors at a window stood. 
Beautiful among lights, and waving to him 
White hands, and courtesy ; but when the 

(Prince 
Three times had blown — after long hush — 

(at last — 
The huge pavilion slowly yielded up. 
Thro' those black foldings, that which 

(housed there in. 
High on a nightblack horse, innightblack 

(arms, 
With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of 

(Death, 



And crown"d with fieshless laughter— some 

(ten steps — 
In the half light — thro* the dim dawn — 

(advanced 
The monster, and then paused, and spake 

(no word. 

But Gareth spake and all indignantly, 
'I ool, for thou hast, men say, the strength 

(often, 
Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God 

(hath given. 
But must, to make the terror of thee more. 
Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries 
Of that which Life hath done with, and the 

(clod, 
Less dull than thou, will hide with man- 

(tling flowers 
As if for pity ?' But he spake no word ; 
Which set the horror higher: a maiden 

(swoon*d; 
The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and 

(wept. 
As doom'd to be the bride of Night and 

(Death ; 
Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm ; 
And ev'n Sir Lancelot thro' his warm blood 

(felt 
Ice strike, and all that mark'd him were 

(aghast. - 

At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely 

(neigh'd — 
At once the black horse bounded forward 

(with him. 
Then those that did not blink the terror,saw 
That Death was cast to ground, and slowly 

(rose. 
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the 

(skull. 
Half fell to rigkt and half to left and lay. 
Then with a stronger buffet he clove the 

(helm 
As throughly as the skull ; and out from this 
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy 
Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, 

('Knight, 
Slay me not: my three brethren bad me do it. 
To make a horror all about the house, 
And stay the world from Lady Lyonors. 
Tbey never dream'd the passes would be 

(past.' 
Answer 'd Sir Gareth graciously to one 
Not many a moon his younger, 'My fair 

(child, 



260 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



What madness made tliee challenge the 

(chief knight 
Of Arthur's hallr* Tair Sir, they bad me 

(do it. 
They hate the King, and Lancelot, theKing's 

(friend, 
They hoped to slay him somewhere on the 

(stream, 
They never dream'd the passes could be 

(past.' 

Then sprang the happier day from under- 

(ground ; 
And Lady Lyonors and her house, with 

(dance 
And revel and song, made merry over Death, 
As being after all their foolish fears 
And horrors only proven a blooming boy. 
So large mirth lived and Gareth won the 

(quest. 

And he that told the tale in older times 
Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, 
But he, that told it later, says Lynette. 

GERAINT AND ENID. 

The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's 

(court, 
A tributary prince of Devon one 
Of that great order of the Table Round, 
Had married Enid, Yniol's only child, 
And loved her, as he loved the light of 

(Heaven. 
And as the light of Heaven varies, now 
Li sunrise, now at sunset, now by night 
AVith moon and trembling stars, so loved 

(Geraint 
To make her beauty vary day by day, 
In crimsons and in purple and in gems. 
And Enid, but to please her husband's eye, 
Who first had found and loved her in a state 
Of broken fortunes, daily fronted him 
In some fresh splendour 3 and the Queen 

(herself. 
Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done. 
Loved her, and often with her own white 

(hands 
Array'd and deck'd her, as the loveliest, 
Next after her own self, in all the court. 
And Enid loved the Queen, and with true 

(heart 
Adored her, as the stateliest and the best 
And loveliest of all women upon earth. 
And seeing thoni so tender and so close, 



Long in their common loverejoicedGeraint 
But when a rumour rose about tlie Queen, 
Touching her guilty love for Lancelot, 
Tho* yet there lived no proof, nor yet was 

(heard 
The world's loud whispher breaking intc 

(storm, 
Not less Geraint believed it; and there fell 
A horror on him, lest his gentle wafe, 
Thro' that great tenderness for Guinevere, 
Had suffer'd, or should suffer any taint 
In nature: wherefore going to the king, 
He made this pretext, that his princedom lay 
Close on the borders of a territory, 
Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiffi 

(knights, 
xissassins, and all flyers from the hand 
Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law: 
xind therefore, till the king himself should 

(please 
To cleanse this common sewer of all his 

(realm. 
He craved a fair permission to depart. 
And there defend his marches : and the king 
Mused for a little on his plea, but, last, 
Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode, 
And fifty knights rode with them, to the 

(shores 
Of Severn, and they past to their own land ; 
Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife 
True to her lord, mine shall be so to me, 
He compass'd her with sweet observances 
And worship, never leaving her, and grew 
Forgetful of his promise to the king, 
Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt, 
Forgetful of the tilt and tournament. 
Forgetful of his glory and his name, 
Forgetful of his princedom and its cares. ' 
And this forgetfulness was hateful to her. 
And by and by the people, when they met 
In twos and threes, or fuller companies, 
Began to scoff and jeer and babble of him 
As of a prince whose manhood was all gone, 
And molten down in mere uxoriousness. 
And this she gather'd from the people's 

(eyes : 
This loo the women who attired her head, 
To please her,dw^elling on his boundles love. 
Told Enid, and they sadden'd her the more : 
And day by day she thought to tell Geraint, 
But could not out of bashful delicacy -, 
While he that watch'd her sadden, was the 

(more 
Suspicious that her nature had a taint. 



GEIUINT AND ENID. 
At last, it chaueed that on a summer morn 



261 



(They sleeping each by either) the new sun 
Beat thro' the blindless casement of the 

(room, 
And heated the strong warrior in his dreams; 
Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, 
And bared the knotted column of his throat, 
The massive square of his heroic breast. 
And arms on which the standing muscle 

(sloped. 
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
Running too vehemently to break upon it. 
And Enid woke and sat beside the couch, 
Admiring him, and thought within herself, 
"Was ever man so grandly made as he? 
Then, like a shadow, past the people's talk 
And accusation of uxoriousness 
Across her mind, and bowing over him, 
Low to her own heart piteously she said : 

„0 noble breast and all-puissant arms. 
Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men 
Reproach you, saying all your force is gone ? 
1 am the cause because I dare not speak 
And tell him what I think and what they 

(say. 
And yet I hate that he should linger here ; 
I cannot love my lord and not his name. 
Far liever had I gird his harness on him. 
And ride with him to battle and stand by. 
And watch his mightful hand striking great 

(blows 
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. 
Far better were I laid in the dark earth, 
Not hearing any more his noble voice, 
IS'ot to be folded more in these dear arms. 
And darken'd from the high light in his 

(eyes, 
Than that my lord thro' me should suffer 

(shame 
Am I so bold, and could I so stand by, 
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife. 
Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes. 
And yet not dare to tell him what I think. 
And how men slur him, saying all his force 
Is melted into mere effeminacy? 
me, I fear that I am no true wife." 

Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke. 
And the strong passion in her made her weep 
True tears upon his broad and naked breast. 
And these awoke him, and by great mis- 

(chance 
He heard but fragments of her later words, 
And that she fear'd she was not a true wife. 



And then he thought, ,,ln spite of all my 

(care. 
For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains, 
She is not faithful to me, and I see her 
Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's 

(hall," 
Then tho' he loved and reverenced her too 

(much 
To dream she could be guilty of foul act, 
Right thro' his manful breast darted the 

(pang 
That makes a man, in the sweet face of her 
Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable. 
At this he hurl'd his huge limbs out of bed, 
And shook his drowsy squire awake and 

(cried, 
-,My charger and her palfrey," ten to her, 
„I will ride forth into the wilderness ; 
For tho' it seems my spurs are yet to win, 
I have not fall'n so"4ow as some would wish. 
And you, put on your worst and meanest 

(dress 
And ride with me." And Enid ask'd, amazed, 
„If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault." 
But he, 1,1 charge you, ask not but obey." 
Then she bethought her of a faded silk, 
A faded mantle and a faded veil. 
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet. 
Wherein she kept them folded reverently 
With sprigs of summer laid between the 

(folds, 
She took them, and array'd herself therein. 
Remembering when first he came on her 
Drest in that dress, and how he loved her 

(in it, 
And all her foolish fears about the dress. 
And all his journey to her, as himself 
Had told her, and their coming to the 

(court. 

For xirthur on the Whitsuntide before 
Held court at old Caerleon upon Esk. 
There on a day, he sitting high in hall. 
Before him came a forester of Dean, 
Wet from the woods, with notice of a hart 
Taller than all his fellows, milky-white. 
First seen that day: these things he told 

(the king. 
Then the good kin^ gave order to let blow 
His horns for hunting on the morrow morn. 
And when the Queen petition'd for his leave 
To see the hunt, allow'd it easily. . 
So with the morning all tlie court were gone. 
But Guinevere lay late into the morn, 



262 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Lost iu sweet dreams, and dreaming of her 

(love 
For Lancelot, and for2:etful of the hunt; 
But rose at last, a single maiden with her, 
Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain'd the 

(wood; 
There, on a little knoll beside it, stay'd 
Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard in- 

(stead 
A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint, 
Late also, wearing neither hunting-dress 
iS^or weapon, save a golden-hilted brand. 
Came quickly flashing thro' tli e shallow ford 
Behind them, and so gallop'd up the knoll. 
A purple scarf, at either end whereof 
There swung an apple of the purest gold, 
Sway'd round about him, as be gallop'd up 
To join them, glancino; like a dragon-fly 
In summer suit and silks of holiday. 
Low bow'd the tributary Prince, and she, 
Sweetly and statelily, rmd with all grace 
Of womanhood and queenhood, answer'd 

(him : 
,,Late, late, Sir Prince," she said, „later than 

(we!" 
„ Yea,noble Queen, "he answer'd,„and so late 
That I but come like you to see the hunt, 
Not join it." ^Therefore wait with me," 

(she said ; 
„ror on this little knoll, if anywhere. 
There is good chance that we shall hear the 

(hounds : 
Here often they break covert at our feet." 

And while they listen'd for the distant 
(huntj 
And chiefly for the baying of Ca vail. 
King Arthur's hound of deepest mouth, 

(there rode 
lull slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf, 
Whereof the dwarf lagg'd latest, and the 

(knight 
Had visor up, and show'd a youthful face, 
Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments 
And Guinevere, not mindful of his face 
In the king's hall, desired his name, and sent 
Her maiden to demand it of the dwarf; 
Who being vicious, old and irritable. 
And doubling all his master's vice of pride. 
Made answer sharply that she should not 

(know. 
„Then will I ask it of himself," she said. 
„Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not," cried 

(the dwarf; 



„Thou art not worthy ev'nto speak of him;" 
And when she put her horse toward the 

(knight. 
Struck at her with his whip, and she re- 

(turn'd 
Indignant to the Queen ; whereat Geraint 
Exclaiming, „Surely I will learn the name." 
Made sharply, to the dwarf, and ask'd it of 

(him 
Who answer*d as before; and when the 

(Prince 
Had put his horse in motion toward the 

(knight, 
Struck at him with his whip, and cut his 

(cheek. 
The Prince's blood spirted upon the scarf. 
Dyeing it ; and his quick, instinctive hand 
Caught at the hilt, as to abolish him : 
But he, from his exceeding manfulness 
And pure nobility of temperament, 
Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain'd 
From ev'n a word, and so returning said. 
„I will avenge this insult, noble Queen, 
Done in your maiden's person to yourself. 
And I will track this vermin to their earths: 
For tho' I ride unarm'd, I do not doubt 
To find, at some place I shall come at, arms 
On loan, or else for pledge; and, being found. 
Then will I fight him, and will break his 

(pride. 
And on the third day, will again be here, 
So that I be not fall'n in fight. Farewell." 

,/Farewell, fair Prince," answer'd the 

(stately Queen. 
"Be prosperous in this journey, as in all; 
And may ye light on all things that ye love. 
And live to wed with her whom first ye love : 
But ere ;^e wed with any, bring your bride, 
And I, were she the daughter of a king. 
Yea, tho' she were a beggar from the hedge. 
Will clothe her for her bridals like the sun." 

And Prince Geraint, now thinking that 

(he heard 
The nol)le hart at bay, now the far horn, 
A little vext at losing of the hunt, 
A little at the vile occasion, rode, 
Byiups and downs, thro' many a grassy glade 
And vall8y,with fixt eye following the three. 
At last they issued from the world of wood. 
And climb'd upon a fair and even ridge, 
And show'd themselves against the sky, and 

(sank. 
And thither came Geraint, and underneath 



GERAINT ANB ENID. 



Beheld the long street of a little town 
'In a long valley, on one side whereof, 
White from the mason's hand,a fortress rose; 
And on one side a castle in decay. 
Beyond a bridge that spann'd a dry ravine: 
And out of town and valley came a noise 
As of a broad brook o'er a shingly bed 
Brawling, or like a clamour of the rooks 
At distance, ere they settle for the night. 

And onward to the fortress rode the three, 
And enter'd, and were lost behind the walls. 
,/So/' thought Geraint, „I have track'd him 

(to his earth." 
And down the long street riding wearily, 
Eound every hostel full, and everywhere 
Was hammer laid to hoof, and the hot hiss 
And bustling whistle of the youth who 

(scoured 
His master's armour; and of such a one 
He ask'd, „What means the tumult in the 

(town?" 
Who told him, scouring still „The sparrow- 

(hawk!" 
Then riding close behind an ancient churl, 
Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam. 
Went sweating underneath a sack of corn, 
Ask'd yet once more what meant the hub- 

(bub here ? 
Who answer'd gruffly, ii\j^\ the sparrow- 

(hawk," 
Then riding further past an armourer's, 
Who, with back turn'd, and bow'd above his 

(work, 
Sat riveting a helmet on his knee. 
He put the self-same query, but the man 
Iv ot turning round, nor looking at him, said: 
(/Priend, he that labours for the sparrow- 

(hawk 
Has little time for idle questioners." 
Whereat Geraint flashed into sudden spleen: 
„Athousandpips eat up your sparrow-hawk! 
Tits, wrens, and all wing*d nothings peck 

(him dead ! 
Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg 
The murmur of the world! What is it to me? 
wretched set of sparrows, one and all. 
Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks ! 
Speak, if ye be not like the rest, hawk-mad. 
Where can I get me harbourage for the night? 
And arms, arms, arms to fight my enemy ? 

(Speak!" 
At tills the armourer turning all amazed 
And seeing one so gay in purple silks, 



Came forward with the helmet yet in hand 
And answer'd, „Pardon me, stranger 

(knight I 
We hold a tourney here to morrow morn, 
And there is scantly time for half the work. 
Arms? truth! I know not: all are wanted here. 
Harbourage? truth, good truth, I know not, 

(save, 
I may be, at Earl Yniol's, o'er the bridge 
Yonder." He spoke and fell to work again. 

Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet, 
Across the bridge that spann'd the dry ra- 

(vine. 
There musing sat the hoary-headed Earl, 
(His dress a suit of fray'd magnificence. 
Once fit for feasts of ceremony) and said : 
„Whither, fair son:" to whom Geraint re- 

(plied, 
,yO friend, I seek a harbourage for the night." 
Then Yniol, ;,Enter therefore and partake 
The slender entertainment of a house 
Once rich, now poor, but ever open-door'd." 
„Thanks, venerable friend," replied Geraint; 
,/So that ye do not serve me sparrow-hawks 
For supper, I will enter, I will eat 
With all the passion of a twelve hours* fast." 
Then sigh'd and smiled the hoary-headed 

(Earl, 
And answerd, „Graver cause than yours is 

(mine 
To curse this hedgerow thief, the sparrow- 

(hawk : 
But in, go in ; for save yourself desire it, 
We will not touch upon him ev'n in jest." 

Then rode Geraint into the castle court. 
His charger trampling many a prickly star 
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. 
He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. 
Here stood a shatter'd archway plumed with 

(fern ; 
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, 
Whole,like a crag that tumbles from the cliff. 
And like a crag was gay Avith wildingflowers: 
And high above a piece of turret stair. 
Worn by the feet that now were silent, 

(wound 
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems 
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms. 
And suck'd the joining of the stones, and 

(look'd 
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove. 

And while he waited in the castle court, 
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang 



264 



IDYLLS OF THE JUNG. 



Clear tliro' the open casement of the Hall, 
Singing ; and as the sweet voice of a bird, 
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle, 
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is 
That sings so delicately clear, and make 
Conjecture of the plumage and the form; 
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint; 
And made him like a man abroad at morn 
When first the liquid note beloved of men 
Comes flying over many a windy wave 
To Britain, and in April suddenly 
Breaks from a coppice gemm'd with green 

(and red, 
And he suspends his converse with a friend, 
Or it may be the labour of his hands. 
To think or say, „there is the nightingale;" 
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and 

(said, 
„Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for 

(me." 

It chanced the song that Enid sang was 

(one 
Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang: 

„Turn,Eortune, turn thy wheel and lower 

(the proud ; 
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, 

(and cloud; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor 

(hate. 

„Turn, Fortune, turn thy weel with smile 

(or frown ; 
With that wild wheel we go not up or down; 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 

Smile and we smile, the lords of many 

(lands; 
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own 

(hands; 
For man is man and master of his fate. 

„Turn,turn thy wheel above the staring 

(crowd ; 
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the 

(cloud : 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor 

(hate." 

„Hark, by the bird's song you may learn 

(the nest" 
SaidYniol ; „Enter quickly." Entering then, 
Right o'er a mount of newly-fallen stones. 
The dusky-rafter'd many-cobweb'd Hall, 
He found an ancient dame in dim brocade ; 
And near her, like a blossom vermeil-white, 
That lightly breaks a faded flower-sheath, 



Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk, 
Her daughter. In a moment thought Ge | 

(raint, 
,.,Here by God's rood isthe onemaid for me !' 
But none spake word except thehoaryEarl I 
„Enid, the good knight's horse stands ii 

(the court ; 
Take him to stall, and give him corn, ant ji 

(then 
Go to the town and buy us flesh and wine ; 
And we will make us merry as we may. 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.' j 
He spake : the Prince, as Enid past him \ 
(fain 
To follow, strode a stride, but Yniol caughl 
His purple scarf, and held, and said //For- 

(bear! 

Rest! the good house, tho'ruin'd, my Son. 
Endures not that her guest should "serve 

(himself. 
And reverencing the custom of the house 
Geraint, from utter courtesy, forbore. 
So Enid took his charger to the stall ; 
And after went her way across the bridge, 
And reach'd the town, and while the Prince 

(and Earl 
Yet spoke together, came again with one, 
A youth, that following with a castrel bore 
The means of goodly welcome, flesh andj 

(wine. 
And Enid brought sweet cakes to make 

(them cheer, 
And in her veil enfolded, manchet bread. 
And then, because their hall must also serve 
For kitchen, boil'd the flesh, and spread the 

(board. 
And stood behind, and waited on the three. 
And seeing her so sweet and serviceable, 
Geraint had longing in him evermore 
To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb, 
That crost the trencher as she laid it down : 
But after all had eaten, then Geraint, 
For now the wine made summer in his veins, 
Let his eye rove in following, or rest 
On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work, 
Now here, now there, about the dusky hall; 
Then suddenly addrest the hoary Earl : 

„Fair Host and Earl, I pray your courtesy ; 
This sparrow-hawk, what is he, tell me of 

(him. 
His name? but no, good faith, I will not 

(have it: 
For if he be the knight whom late I saw 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



265 



iide.into that new fortress by your town, 
SVhite from the mason's hand, then have I 

(sworn 
iFrom his own lips to have it — lam Geraint 
3f Devon — for this'morning when theQueen 
(Sent her own Diaiden to demand the name, 
IHis dwarf, a vicious under-shapen thing, 
Struck at her with his whip,and she return'd 
[ndignant to the Queen ; and then I swore 
That I would track this caitiif to his hold, 
Wind fight and break his pride, and have it 
' (of him. 

\iind all unarmed I rode, and thought to find 
\Arms in your town, where all the men are 
1 (mad ; 

IThey take the rustic murmur of, their bourg 
■ For the great wave that echoes round the 

(world; 
jlThey would not hear me speak: but if ye 

(know 
Where I can light on arms, or if yourself 
Should have them, tell me, seeing I have 

(sworn 
I That I will break his pride and learn his 

(name. 
Avenging this great insult done the Queen." 

Then cried Earl Yniol. "Art thou he in- 
(deed, 
'( Geraint, a name far sounded among men 
Tor noble deeds? and truly I, when first 
I saw you moving by me on the bridge, 
I'elt you were somewhat, yea and by your 

(state 
And presence might have guess'd you one 

(of those 
That eat in Arthur's hall at Camelot. 
In or speak I now from foolish flattery; 
Tor this dear child hath often heard me 

(praise 
Your feats of arms, and often when I paused 
Hath ask'd again, and ever loved to hear ; 
So grateful is the noise of noble deeds 
To noble hearts who see but acts of wrong : 

never yet had woman such a pair 

Of suitors as this maiden ; first Limours, 
A creature wholly given to brawls and wine, 
Drunk even when he woo'd, and be he dead, 

1 know not, but he past to the wild land. 
The second was your foe, the sparro w-h awk. 
My curse, my nephew — I will not let his 

(name 
Slip from my lips if I can help it — he. 
When I that knew him fierce and turbulent 



Refused her to him, then his pride awoke ; 
And since the proud man often is tlie mean, 
He sow'd slaKder in the common ear, 
Affirming that his father left him gold. 
And in my charge, which was not render'd 

(to him ; 
Bribed with large promises the men who 

(served 
About my person, the more easily 
Because my means were somewhat broken 

(into 
Thro' open doors and hospitality; 
Raised my own town against me in the night 
Before my Enid's birthday,sack'd my house; 
From mine own earldom foully ousted me: 
Built that new fort to overawe my friends, 
For truly there are those who love me yet; 
And keeps me in this ruinous castle here, 
Where doubtless he would put me soon to 

(death. 
But that his pride too much despises me : 
And I myself sometimes despise myself; 
For I have let men be. and have their way. 
Am much too gentle, have not used my 

(power: 
Nor know I whether I be very base 
Or very manful, whether very wise 
Or very foolish ; only this I know, 
That whatsoever evil happen to me, 
I seem to suffer nothing heart or limb, 
But can endure it all most patiently." 

„Well said, true heart," replied Geraint, 

(,/but arms; 
That if the sparrow-hawk, this nephew, 

(fight, 
In next day's tourney I may break his 

(pride." 

And Yniol answer'd ,/Arms, indeed, but 

(old 
And rusty, old and rusty. Prince Geraint, 
Are mine, and therefore at your asking, 

(yours. 
But in this tournament can no man tilt. 
Except the lady he loves best be there. 
Two forks are fixt into the meadow ground, 
And over these is laid a silver wand, 
xind over that is placed the sparrow-hawk. 
The prize of beauty for the fairest there. 
And this, what knight soever be in field 
Lays claim to for the lady at his side, 
And tilts with my good nephew thereupon, 
Who being apt at arms and big of bone 
Has ever won it for the lady with him. 



26fi 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



And toppliuj; over all Hiitagonism 

Has earn'd himself the name of sparrow- 

(hawk. 
But you, that have uo lady, cannot fight." 

To whom Geraint with eyes all bright 

(replied, 
Leaning a little toward him, „Your leave! 
Let /lie lay lance in rest, noble host, 
For this clear child, because I never saw, 
Tho' having seen all beauties of our time, 
Xor can seen elsewhere, anything so fair. 
And if I fall her name will yet remain 
Untarnish'd as before; but if I live. 
So aid me Heaven when at mine uttermost, 
As I will make her truly my true wife." 

Then, howsoever patient, Yniol's heart 
Danced in his bosom, seeing better days. 
And looking round he saw not Enid there, 
(Who hearing her own name had slipt away) 
But that old dame, to whom full tenderly 
And fondling all her hand in his he said, 
"Mother, a maiden is a tender thing. 
And best by her that bore her understood. 
Go thou to rest, but ere thou go to rest 
Tell her, and prove her heart toward the 

(Prince." 

So spake the kindly-hearted Earl, and she 
With frequent smile and nod departing 

(found. 
Half disarray 'd as to her rest, the girl; 
Whom first she kiss*d on either cheek, and 

(then 
On either shining shoulder laid a hand, 
And kept her off and gazed upon her face. 
And told her all their converse in the hall. 
Proving her heart: but never light and shade 
Coursed one another more on open ground 
Beneath a troubled heaven,than red and pale 
Across the face of Enid hearing her ; 
W^hile slowly falling as a scale that falls. 
When weight is added only grain by grain, 
Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast; 
Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word. 
Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it ; 
So moving without answer to berrest 
She found no rest, and ever faiPd to draw 
The quiet night into her blood, but lay 
Contemplating her own unworthiness; 
And when the pale :ind bloodless east began 
To quicken to the sun, arose, and raised 
nermothertoo,and band in hand they moved 
Down to the meadow where thej ousts were 

rheid. 



And waited there for Yniol and Geraint. 

And thither came the twain, and when 

(Geraint 
Beheld her first in field, awaitino: him, 
He felt, were she the prize of bodily force, 
Himself beyond the rest pushing could move 
The chair of Idris. YnioPs rusted arms 
Were on his princely person, but thro* these 
Princelike his bearing shone; and errant 

(knights 
And ladies came, and by and by the town 
Elow'd in, and settling circled in all the lists. 
And there they fixt the forks into the ground, 
And over these they placed a silker wand 
And over that a golden sparrow-hawk. 
Then Yniol's nephew, after trumpet blown. 
Spake to the lady with him and proclaimM, 
,, Advance and take as fairest of the fair, 
For I these two years past have won it for 

(thee. 
The prize of beauty." Loudly spake the 

(Prince, 
„Eorbear: there is worthier," and the knight 
With some surprise and thrice as much dis- 

(dain 
Turn'd, and beheld the four, and all his 

(face 
Glow'd like the heart of a great fire at Y'ule, 
So burnt he was with passion, crying out, 
„Do battle for it then," no more ; and thrice 
They clash 'd together, and thrice they brake 

(their spears. 
Then each, dishorsed and drawing, lash'd at 

(each 
So often and with such blows, that all the 

(crowd 
Wonder'd and now and then from distant 

(walls 
There came a clapping as of phantom hands. 
So twice they fought, and twice they 

(breathed, and still [ 

The dew of their great labour, and the blood | 
Of their strong bodies, flowing, drain'd their ! 

(force. i 

But either's force was match 'd till Yniol's ! 

(cry, 
„llemember that great insult done the : 

(Queen, 
Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade 

(aloft. 
And crack'd the helmet thro,' and hit the 

(bone, 
And fell'd him, and set foot upon his breast, 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



\ I And said, Thy name?^' To whom the fallen 

(man 
Made answer,groaning, 7Edyrn,son of Nudd! 
Ashamed ami that I should tell it thee. 
My pride is broken : men have seen my fall." 
„Then, Edyrn, son of Nudd," replied Geraint, 
„These two things shalt thou do, or else thou 

(diest. 
. First, thou thyself, thy lady, and thy dwarf, 
Shalt ride to Arthur*fi court, and being there, 
Crave pardonforthatinsultdonethe Queen, 
And shalt abide her judgment on it ; next, 
Thou shalt give back their earldom to thy 

(kin. 
These two things shalt thou do, or thou shalt 

die." 
AndEdyrn answer 'd, ,/These things will I do, 
For I have never yet been overthrown, 
, And thou hast overthrown me, and my pride 
Is broken down, for Enid sees my fall!" 
And rising up, he rode to Arthur's court, 
And there the Queen forgave him easily. 
And being young, he changed, and came to 

(loathe 
His crime of traitor, slowly drew himself 
Bright from his old dark life, and fell at last 
In the great battle fighting for the king. 

But when the third day from the hunting- 

(morn 
Made a low splendour in the world, and 

(wings 
Moved iu her ivy, Enid, for she lay 
With her fair head in the dim-yellow light, 
Among the dancing shadows of the birds, 
' Woke and bethought her of her promise 

(given 
Xo later than last eve to Prince Geraint — 
So bent he seem*d on going the third day. 
He would not leave her, till her promise 

(given ~ 
To ride with him this morning to the court, 
And there be made known to the stately 

(Queen, 
And there be wedded with all ceremony ; 
At this she cast her eyes upon her dress, 
And t bought it never yet had look'd so mean. 
For as a leaf in mid-November is 
To what it was in mid-October, seem'd 
The dress that now she look'd on to the dress 
She look'd on ere the coming of Geraint. 
And still she look'd and still the terror grew 
I Of that strange bright and dreadful thing, 

(a court, 



All staring at her in her faded silk: 

And softly to her own sweet heart she said : 

„This noble prince who won our earldom 

(back, 
So splendid in his acts and his attire. 
Sweet heaven, how much I shall discredit 

(him! 
Would he could tarry with us here awhile I 
But being so beholden to the Prince, 
It were but little grace in any of us, 
Bent as he seem'd on going this third day, 
To seek a second favour at his bands. 
Yet if he could but tarry a day or two, 
Myself would work eye dim, and finger lame, 
Far liefer than so much discredit him." 

And Enid fell in longing for a dress 
All branch'd and flower'd with gold, a 

(costly gift 
Of her good mother, given her on the night 
Before her birthday, three sad years ago, 
That night of fire, when Edyrn sack'd their 

(house. 
And seatter'd all they had to all the winds. 
For while the mother show'd it, andthetw^o 
Were turning and admiring it, the w^ork 
To both appear'd so costly, rose a ery 
That Edyrn's men were on them, and they 

(filed 
With little save the jewels they had on, 
Which being sold and sold had bought them 

(bread. 
And Edyrn's men had caught them in their 

(flight, 
And placed them in this ruin; and she 

(wish'd 
The Prince had found her in her ancient 

(home ; 
Then let her fancy flit across the past. 
And roam the goodly places that she knew ; 
And last bethought her how she used to 

(watch, 
Near that old home, a pool of golden carp ; 
And one was patch'd and blurr'd aud 

(lustreless 
Among his burnish'd brethren of the pool ; 
And half asleep she made comparison 
Of that and these to her own faded self 
And the gay court, and fell asleep again ; 
And dreamt herself was such a faded form 
Among her burnish'd sisters of the pool; 
But this was in the garden of a king; 
And tho' she lay dark in the pool, sheknew 



S68 



TB/'LLS OF THE KING. 



That all was bright ; that all shout were 

(birds 
Of sunny plume in gilded trellls-work: 
That all the turf was rich in plots that look'd 
Each like a garnet or a turkis in it; 
And lords and ladies of the high court went 
In silver tissue talking things of state : 
And children of the king in cloth of gold 
Glanced at the doors or gambol'd down the 

(walks; 
And wiiile she thought /,they will not see 

(me," came 
A stately queen whose name was Guinevere, 
And allthe children in their cloth of gold 
Ran to her, crying, „if we have fish at all 
Let them be gold; and charge the gardeners 

(now 
To pick the faded creature from the pool, 
And cast it on the mixen that it die. 
And therewithal one came and seized on her, 
And Enid started waking, with her heart 
All overshadow'd by the foolish dream, 
And lo! it was her mother grasping her 
To get her well awake ; and in her hand 
A suit of bright apparel, which she laid 
Flat on the couch, and spoke exultingly: 

„See here, my child, how fresh he colours 

(look. 
How fast they hold like colours of a shell 
That keeps the wear and polish of the wave. 
Why not ? it never yet was worn, I trow : 
Look on it, child, and tell me if ye know it.'' 

And Enid look'd, but all confused at first, 
Could scarce divide it from her foolish 

(dream -. 
Then suddenly she knew it and rejoiced. 
And answer'd, „Yea, I know it; your good 

(gift, 
So sadly lost on that unhappy night ; 
Your own good gift!" „Yea, surely,'' said 

(the dame, 
-/And gladly given again this happy morn. 
For when the jousts were ended yesterday, 
Went Yniol thro' the town, and everywhere 
He found the sack and plunder of our house 
All scatter'd thro' the houses of the town; 
And gave command that all which once was 

(ours, 
Should now be ours again : and yester-eve. 
While you were talking sweetly with your 

(Prince, 
Came one with this and laid it in my hand, 
For love or fear, or seekingr favour of us, 



Because we have our earldom back again. 

And yester-eve I would not tell you of it, 
But kept it for a sweet surprice at morn. 
Yea, truly is it not a sweet surprise? 
Fori myself unwillingly have worn 
My faded suit, as you, my child, have yours, 
xind howsoever patient, Yniol his. 
Ah, dear, he took me from a goodly house, 
With store of rich apparel, sumptuous fare> 
And page, and maid, and squire, and sene- 
schal," 
And pastime both of hawk and hound, and 

(all 
That appertains to noble maintenance. 
Yea, and he brought me too a goodly house; 
But since our fortune slipt from' sun to 

(shade. 
And all thro' that young traitor, cruel need 
Constrain'd us, but a better time has come; 
So clothe yourself in this, that better fits 
Our mended fortunes and a Prince's bride: 
For tho' ye won the prize of fairest fair. 
And tho' I heard him call you fairest fair, 
Let never maiden think, however fair, 
She is not fairer in new clothes than old. 
And should some great court-lady say, the 

(Prince 
Hath pick'd a ragged-robin from the hedge, 
And like a madman brought her to the court, 
Then were ye shamed, "and, w^orse, might 

(shame the Prince 
To whom we are beholden ; but I know, 
When my dear child is set forth at her best, 
That neither court nor country, tho' they 

(sought 
Thro' all the provinces like those of old 
That lighted on Queen Esther, has hex 

(match." 

Here ceased the kindly mother out of 
(breath ; 

And Enid listen'd brightening as she lay; 

Then, as the white and glittering star of 
(morn 

Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by 

Slips into golden cloud, the maideu rose, 

And left her maiden couch, and robed her- 
self, 

Help'd by the mother's careful hand and 
(eve. 

Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown ; 

Who, after, turn'd her daughter round, and 
(said, 

She never yet had seen her half so fair; 



GERJTNT AND ENID. 



269 



And call'd her like that maiden in the tale, 
Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of 

(flowers, 
•And sweeter than the bride of Ca?sivelaun, 
Flur, for whose love the Eoman Csesar first 
Invaded Britain, .;but we beat him back, 
As this great prince invaded us, and we, 
Not beat him back, but welcomed him with 

(Joy. 
And! can scarcely ride with you to court, 
For old am I, and roush the ways and wild ; 
But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream 
I see my princess as I see her now. 
Clothed' with my gift, and gay among the 

(gay." 

But while the women thus rejoiced, Ge- 
(raint 
Woke where he slept in the high hall, and 

(call'd 
For Enid, and when Yniol made report 
Of that good mother making Enid gay 
In such apparel as might well beseem 
His princess, or indeed the stately queen, 
He answer'd; ,,Farl, entreat her by my love, 
Albeit I give no reason but my wish. 
That she ride with me in her faded silk/' 
Yniol with that hard message went ; it fell, 
Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn: 
For Enid all abashed she'knew not why, 
Dared not to glance at her good mother's 

(face. 
But silently, in all obedience, 
' Her mother silent too, nor helping her, 
:■ Laid from her limbs the costly-broider'd^ift, 
And robed them in her ancient suit again. 
And so descended. !N"ever man rejoiced, 
More than Geraint to greet herthus attired: 
And glancing all at once as keenly at her, 
^ As ca'reful robins eye the delver's toil, 
Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall, 
But rested with her sweet face, satisfied ; 
Then seeing cloud upon the mother's brow, 
Her by both hands he caught, and sweetly 
(said. 

,/0 my new mother,benot wroth or grieved 
At your new son, for my petition to her. 
\yhen late I left Caerleon, our great Queen, 
In words whose echo lasts, they were so 

(sweet, 
Made promise,, that whatever bride I 

(brought, 
Herself would clothe her like the sun in 
, (Heaven. 



Thereafter, when I reach'd this ruin*d hold 
Beholding one so bright in dark'estate, 
I vow'd that could I gain her, our kind 

(Queen, 
Xo hand but hers, should make your Enid 

(burst 
Snnlike from cloud — and likewise thought 

(perhaps 
That service done so graciously would bind 
The two together: for I wish the two 
To love each other: how should Enid find 
A nobler friend? Another thought I had; 
I came among you here so suddenly. 
That tho' hef gentle presence at the lists 
Might well have served for proof that I was 

(lo\'ed, 
I doubted whether filial tenderness, 
Or easy nature, did not let itself 
Be moulded by your wishes for her weal; 
Or whether some false sense in her own self 
Of my contrasting brightness, overbore 
Her fancy dwelling is this dusky hall; 
And such a sense might make her long for 

(court 
And all its dangerous glories : and I thought, 
That could I someway prove such force in 

(her 
Link'd with such love for me, that at a 

(word 
CSo reason given her) she could cast aside 
A splendour dear to women, new to her, 
And therefore dearer; or if not so new. 
Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power 
Of intermitted custom ; then I felt 
That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows, 
Fixt on her faith, Xow, therefore, I do rest, 
A prophet certain of my prophecy. 
That never shadow of mistrust can cross 
Between us. Grant me pardon for my 

(thoughts 
And for my strange petition I will make 
Amends hereafter by some gaudy day, 
Whenvour fair child shall wear your costlv 

(gift* 
Beside your own warm heart, with, on her 

(knees, 
Who knows ? another gift of the high God, 
Which, maybe, shall have learn'd to lisp 

(you thanks." 

He spoke : the mother smiled, but half in 
(tears, 
Then brought a mantle down and wrapt 
(her in it. 



270 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



And claspt and kiss'd her, and they rode 

(away, 

Now thrice that morning Guinevere had 

(climb'd 
The giant tower, from whose high crest, 

(they say,! 
Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset, 
And white sails flying on the yellow sea; 
But not to goodly hill or yellow sea 
Look'd the fair Queen, but up the vale of 

(Usk, 
By the flat meadow, till she saw them come ; 
And then descending met them at the gates. 
Embraced her with all welcome as a friend. 
And did her honour as the Prince's bride, 
And clothed her for her bridals like the sun ; 
And all that week was old Caerleon gay, 
For by the hands of Dubric, the high saint. 
They twain were wedded with all ceremony. 

And this was on the last year's Whitsun- 
. (tide. 

But Enid ever kept the faded silk, 
Bemembering how first he came on her, 
Brest in that dress, and how he loved her 

(in it, 
And all her foolish fears about the dress. 
And all his journey toward her, as himself 
Had told her, and their coming to the court. 

And now this morning when he said to 

(her, 
„Put on your worst and meanest dress," 

(she found 
And took it, and array'd herself therein. 

purblind race of miserable men, 
Ilow many among us at this very hour 
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves. 
By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world 
Groping, how many, until we pass and 

(reach 
Tliat other, where we see as we are seen ! 

So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth 
That morning, when they both had got to 

(horse. 
Perhaps because he loved her passionately, 
And felt that tempest brooding round his 

(heart, 
Which, if lie spoke at all, would break per- 

(force 
Upon a head so dear in thunder, said: 
^Isot at my side. I cliarge you ride before, 
J^ver a good way on ])efore; and this 



I charge you, on your duty as a wife, 
Whatever happens, not to speak to me, 
No, not a word !" and Enid was aghast \ 
And forth they rode, but scarce three paces 

(on, 
When crying: out ^Effeminate as I am, 
I will not fight my way with gilded arms, 
All shall be iron \" he loosed a mighty purse, 
Hung at his belt, and hurl'd it toward the 

(squire. 
So the last sight that Enid had of home 
Was all the marble threshold flashing, 

(strown 
With gold and scatter'd coinage, and the 

(squire 
Chafing his shoulder : then he cried again, 
„To the wilds !" and Enid leading down the 

(tracks 
Thro' which he bade her lead him on, they 

(past 
The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds, 
Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the 

(hern, 
And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode: 
Round was their pace at first, but slackened 

(soon: 
A stranger meeting them had surely thought 
They rode so slowly and they look'd so pale, 
That each had suffer'd some exceeding 

(wrong. 
Eor he was ever saying to himself 
„0 1 that wasted time to tend upon her. 
To compass her with sweet observance, 
To dress her beautifully and keep her trne"- 
And there he brokethe sentence in his heart 
Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue 
May break it,when his passion masters him. 
And she was ever praying the sweet heavens 
To save her dear lord wholefrom anynvound. 
And ever in her mind she cast about 
Eor that unnoticed failing in herself, 
Which made himlook so cloudy and so cold ; 
Till the great plover's human whistle ania- 

(zed 
Her heart, and glancing round the waste 

(she fear'd 
In every wavering brake an ambuscade. 
Then thought again „if there be such in me, 
I might amend it by the grace of heaven. 
If he would only speak and tell me ot it." 

But when the fourth part of the day was 
(gone, . 

Tlien Enid was aware ofthree tall knights 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



271 



; On horseback, wliolly arni'cl, behind a rock 
' In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all ; 
' And heard one crying to his fellow, ,/Look, 
: Here comes a laggard hanging down his 
(head. 
Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound ; 
Come, we will slay him and will have his 

(horse 
And armour, and his damsel shall be ours." 

Then Enid ponder'd in her heart, and said ; 
„I will go back a little to my lord, 
j And I will tell him all their caitiff talk; 
I I*'or, be he wroth even to slaying me, 
Tar liever by his dear hand had I die, 
Than that my lord should suffer loss or 

(shame." 

Then she went back some paces of return, 
Met his full frown timidly lirm, and said : 
\ „My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock 
Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast 
That they would slay you, and possess 

(your horse 
And armour, and your damsel should be 

(theirs." 

He made a wrathful answer. „Did I wish 
Your warning oryour silence? one command 
I laid upon you, not to speak to me, 
And thus you keep it ! Well then, look — 

(for now. 
Whether you wish me victory or defeat, 
Long for my life, or hunger for my death, 
Yourself shall see my vigour is not lost." 

Then Enid waited pale and sorrowful. 
And down upon him bare the bandit three. 
And at the midmost charging,Prince Geraint 
Drave the long spear a cubit thro* his breast 
And out beyond; and then against his brace 
Of comrades, each of whom had broken on 

(him 
k lance that splinter'd like an icicle. 
Swung from his brand a windy buffet out 
Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunn'd 

(the twain 
Or slew them, and dismounting like a man 
That skins the wild beast after slaying him, 
Stript from the three dead wolves of woman 

(born 
The three gay suits of armour which they 

(wore. 
And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits 
Of armour on their horses, each on each. 
And tied the bridle-reins of all the three 



Together, and said to her, ,, Drive them on 
Before you;" and she drove them thro' the 

(waste. 

He follow'd nearer; ruth began to work 
Against his anger in him, while he watch'd 
The being he loved best in all the world, 
With difficulty in mild obedience 
Driving them on: he fain had spoken toher. 
And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath 
And smoulder'd wrong that burnt him all 

(within; 
But evermore it seem'd an easier thing 
At once without remorse to strike her dead, 
Than to cry „Halt," and to her own bright 

(face 
Accuse her of the least immodesty : 
And thus tongue-tied, it made hira wroth 

(the more 
That she could speak whom his own ear had 

(heard 
Call herself false: and suffering thus lie 

(made 
Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time 
Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk, 
Before lie turn to fall seaward again. 
Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold 
In the first shallow shade of a deep wood, 
Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks, 
Three other horsemen waiting, wholly 

(arm'd. 
Whereof one seem'd far larger than her lord, 
And shook her pulses, crying, „Look,aprize! 
Three horses and three goodly suits of arms, 
And all in charge of whom? a girl: set on." 
,;Nay" said the second, ,/yonder comes a 

knight" 
The third, ,A craven; how he hangs his 

(head." 
The giant answei'd merrily, ,/Yea, but one? 
Wait here, and when he passes fall upon 

(him." 

And Enid ponder'd in her heart and said, 
„I will abide the coming of my lord, 
And I will tell him all their villainy. 
My lord is weary with the fight before. 
And they will fall upon him unawares. 
I needs must disobey him for his good; 
How should I dare obey him to his harm ? 
Needs must I speak,and tho' he kill me for it, 
I save a life dearer to me than mine." 

And she abode his coming,andsaidtohim 
With timid firmness, „Have I leave to 

(speak?" 



272 



IDYLLS OF THE KIXG. 



He said, ,Ye take it, speakiDg/' aud she 

(spoke/' 

;There lurk three villains yonder iu the 

*,wood,' 
Aud each of them is wholly arm'd, and one 
Ts larger-limb'd than you are, and they say 
That they will fall upon you while ye pass.'' 

To which he flung a wrathful answer 

i.back : 
,,And if there were an hundred in the wood, 
And every man were larger-limb'd than I, 
Aud all at once should sally out upon me. 
I swear it would not ruffle me so much 
As you that not obey me. Stand aside, 
And if I fall, cleave to the better man.' 

And Enid stood aside to wait the event, 
^ot dare to watch the combat, only breathe 
Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath. 
Aud he, she dreaded most, bare down upon 

(him. 
Aim'd at the helm, his lance eri'd: but Ge- 

(raint's, 
A little in the late encounter strain'd, 
Struck thro' the bulky bandit's corselet 

•;home, 
And then brake short, and down his enemy 

{roU'd 
And there lay still : as he that tells the tale, 
Saw once a great piece of a promontory, 
That had a sapling growing on it, slip 
from the long shore •clift''3 windy walls to 

(the beach, 
And there lie still, and yet the sapling gi'ew: 
So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair 
Of comrades, making slowlier at the Prince, 
AVhen now they saw their bulwark fallen, 

-stood: 
On whom the victor,to confound them more, 
.^purr'd with his terrible war-cry; for as one. 
That listens nearatorrent mountain-brook, 
All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears 
The drumming thunder of the huger f<ill 
At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear 
His voice in battle, and be kindled by it. 
And foe men scared, like that false pair who 

(turn'd 
I'lying, but, overtaken, died the death 
Themselves had wrought on many aninno- 

(cent. 

Thereon Geraint, dismounting, pick'dtbe 

(lance 
That pleased him best, and diew from those 

(dead wolves 



Their three gay suits oi armour, each from 

(each, 
And bound them on their horses, each on 

i.each, 
Aud tied the bridle-reins of all the three 
Together, and said to her, ./Drive them on 
Before you," and she drove them thro' the 

i.wood. 

He followed nearer still: the pain she had 
To keep them in the wild ways of the wood. 
Two sets of three laden with'jiugling arms, 
Together, served a little to di'sedge 
The sharpness of that pain about her heart: 
And they themselves, like creatures gently 

-born ' 

But into bad hands fall'n, and now so long 
By bandits groom'd, prick'd their light earS; 

^^and felt 
Her low firm voice and tender government. 

So thro' the green gloom of the wood they 

i.past. 
And issuing under open heavens beheld 
A little town with towers, upon a rock, 
And closebeneath, a meadow gemlike chased 
In the brown wild, and mowers moving in it: ' 
And down a rocky pathway from the place 
There came a fair-hair'd youth, that in his 

,Land 
Bare victual for the mowers : and Geraint 
Had ruth again on Enid looking pale: 
Then, moving downward to the meadow 

aground, 
He^ when the fair-hair'd youth came by 

jiim, said, 
' Eriend, let her eat ; the damsel is so faint." 
,/Yea, willingly.'' replied the youth; „and 

(^you, 
My' lord, eat also, tho' the fare is coarse, 
And only meet for mowers:'' then set down 
His basket, and dismounting on the sward 
They let the horses graze, and ate them- 

(selves. 
And Enid took a little delicately, 
Less having stomach for it than desire 
To close with her lord's pleasure; butGe- 

-raint 
Ate all the mowers' victual unawares. 
And when he found all empty, was amazed; 
And vBoy,'- said he, ;I have-eaten all, but 

(take 
A horse and arm for guerdon .; choose the 

(.best.'' 
He, reddening in extremity of delight, 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



273 



„My lord, you overpay me fifty-fold. '^ 

„Ye will be all the wealthier," cried the 

(Prince. 
,,1 take it as free gift, then," said the boy, 
,;Not guerdon ; for myself can easily. 
While your good damsel rests, return, and 

(fetch 
I'resh victual for these mowers of our Earl ; 
Tor these are his, and all the field is his, 
xind I myself am his ; and I will tell him 
How great a man you are, he loves to know 
When men of mark are in his territory -. 
And he will have you to his palace here, 
And serve you co'stlier than with mowers' 

(fare." 

Then said Geraint, „I wish no better fare : 
I never ate with angrier appetite 
Than when I left your mowers dinnerless. 
And into no Earl's palace will I go. 
I know, God knows, too much of palaces! 
And if he want me, let him come to me. 
But hire us some fair cb amber for the night, 
And stalling for the horses, and return 
With victual for these men,and let us know." 

„ Yea, my kind lord," said the glad youth, 

(and went, 
Held his head high, and thought himself a 

(knight, 
And up the rocky pathway disappear'd, 
Leading the horse, and they were left alone. 

But whentlie Prince had brought his er- 

(rant eyes 
Home from the rock, sideways he let them 

(glance 
At Enid, where she droopt : his own false 

(doom. 
That shadow of mistrust should never cross 
Betwixt them, came upon him,and he sigh 'd; 
Then with another humorous ruth remark'd 
The lusty mowers labouring dinnerless, 
And watch'd the sun blaze on the turning 

(scythe, 
And after nodded sleepily in the heat. 
But she, remembering her old ruin'd hall. 
And all the windy clamour of the daws 
About her hollow turret, pluck'd the grass 
There growinglongest by the meadow's edge, 
And into many a listless annulet, 
Now over, now beneath her marriage ring. 
Wove and unwove it, till the boy return'd 
And told^them of a c]iamber,and they went \ 
Where, after saying to her, ,/If ye will, 
Call for the woman of the liouse," to which 



She answer 'd, ^Thanks, mylord;" the two 

(remain'd 
Apart by all the chamber's width, and mute 
As creatures voiceless thro' the fault of birth, 
Or two wild men supporters of a shield, 
Painted, who stare at open space, nor glance 
The one at other, parted by the shield. 

On a sudden, many a voice along the street. 
And heel against thepavementechoing,burst 
Their drowze; and either started while the 

(door, 
Push'd from without, drave backward to the 

(wall, 
And midmost of a rout of roisterers, 
Eemininely fair and dissolutely pale. 
Her suitor in old years before Geraint, 
Enter'd, the wild lord of the place, Limours, 
He moving up with pliant courtliness. 
Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily. 
In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt 

(hand. 
Found Enid with the corner of his eye, 
And knew her sitting sad and solitary. 
Then criedGeraint for wine andgoodly cheer 
To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously 
According to his fashion, bad the host 
Call in what men soever were his friends, 
And feast with these in honour of their earl; 
„ And care not for the cost; the cost is mine." 

And wine andfood werebrought,and Earl 

(Limours 
Drank till he jested with all ease, and told 
Eree tales, and took the word and play'd 

(upon it. 
And made it of two colours; for his talk, 
When wine and free companions kindled 

(him. 
Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem 
Of fifty facets; thus he moved the Prince 
To laughter and his comrades to applause. 
Then, when the Prince was merry, ask'd 

(Limours, 
,, Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and 

(speak 
To your good damsel there who sits apart. 
And seems so lonely?" „My free leave" he 

(said ; 
,/Get her to speak : she does not speak to me. 
Then rose Limours and looking at his feet. 
Like him who tries the bridge he fears may 

(fail, 
Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes , 
Bow'd at her side and utter'd whisperingly: 



374 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



„Enid, the pilot star of my lone life, 
Enid my early and my only love, 
Enid the loss of whom has turn'd me wild — 
What chance i s this? how is it I see you here? 
You are in my power at last, are in my power. 
Yet fear me not: I call mine own self wild, 
But keep a touch of sweet civility 
Here in the heart of waste and wilderness. 
I thought, but that your father came be- 

(tween, 
In former days you saw me favourably. 
And if it were so do not keep it back :. 
Make me a little happier: let me know it: 
Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost ? 
Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are. 
And, Enid, you and he, I see it with joy — 
You sit apart, you do not speak to him. 
You come with no attendance, page or maid, 
To serve you — does he love you as of old? 
For, call it lovers' quarrels, yet I know 
Tho' men may bicker with the things they 

(love, 
They would not make them laughable in all 

(eyes. 
Not while they loved them; .and your 

(wretched dress, 
A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks 
Your story, that this man loves you no more. 
Your beauty is no beauty to him now: 
A common chance — right well I know it — 

(pall'd — 
For I know men : nor will ye win him back, 
For the man's love once gone never returns. 
But here is one who loves you" as of old; 
With more exceeding passion than of old: 
Good, speak the word: my followers ring 

(him round: 
He sits unarmd'; I hold a finger up; 
They understand : no ; I do not mean blood : 
jN'or need you look so scared at what I say : 
My malice is no deeper than a moat. 
No stronger than a wall : there is the keep ; 
He shall not cross us more; speak but the 

(word: 
Or speak it not ; but then by Him that made 

(me 
The one true lover which you ever had, 
I will make use of all the power I have. 
pardon me ! the madness of that hour, 
When first I parted from you, moves me yet." 

At this the tender sound of his own voice 
And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it. 
Made his eye moist; but Enid fear'd his eyes, 



Moist as they were, wine-heated from the 

(feast ; 
And answer'd with sucli craft as women use. 
Guilty or guiltless, to stave oil' a chance 
That breaks upon them perilously, and said : 

„Earl, if you love me as in former years, 
And do not practise on me, come with morn, 
And snatch me from him as by violence ; 
Leave me to-night; I am weary to the death." 

Low at leave-taking, with his brandish 'd 

(plume 
Brushing his instep, bow'd the all-amorous 

(Earl, 
And the stout Prince bad him a loud good- 

(night 
He moving homeward babbled to his men, 
How Enid never loved a man bat him. 
Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord. 

But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint, 
Debating his command of silence given. 
And that she now perforce must violate it, 
Held commune with herself, and while she 

(held 
He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart 
To wake him, but hung o'er him, wholly 

(pleased 
To find him yet unwounded after fight, 
And hear him breathing low and equally. ■ 
Anon she rose, and stepping lightly, heap'd 
The pieces of his armour in one place, 
All to be there against a sudden need ; 
Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoil'd 
By that day's grief and travel, evermore 
Seem'd catching at rootless thorn, and then 
Went slipping down horrible precipices, 
And strongly striking out her limbs awoke ; 
Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the 

(door, 
With all his rout of random followers, 
Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning 

(her ; 
Which was the red cock shouting to the 

(light. 
As the gray dawn stole o'er the dewy world, 
And glimmer'd on his armour in the room. 
And once asain she rose to look at it. 
But touch'd it unawares: jangling, the 

(casque 
Fell, ai-id he started up and stared at her. 
Then breakinghis command of silence given. 
She told him all that Earl Limours had said, 
Except the passage that he loved her not ; 
Nor left untold the craft herself had used ; 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



275 



But ended with apology so sweet, 
Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seem'd 
So justified by that necessity. 
That tho' he thought ,/was it for him she 

(wept 
In Devon ?'' he but gave a wrathful groan, 
Saying ,,your sweet faces make good fellows 

(fools 
Ajid traitors. Call the host and bid him bring 
Charger and palfrey.'' So she glided out 
Among the heavy breathings of the house. 
And like a household Spirit at the walls 
Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and re- 
ctum 'd: 
Then tendiug her rough lord, tho' all 

(unask'd, 
In silence, did him service as a squire ; 
Till issuing arm'd he found the host and 

(cried, 
./Thv reckonins:, friend r'' and ere he leamt 

(it, ,/Take 
live horses and their armours;" and the host 
Suddenly honest, answer'd in amaze, 
./My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of 

(onel'' 
,/ Ye will be all the wealthier'' said the Prince, 
And then to Enid, ,/rorwardl and to-day 
I charge you, Enid, more especially, 
What thiiog soever ye may hear, or* see, 
Or fancy (tho' I count it of small use 
To charge you) that ye speak not but obey." 

And Enid answer'd, ,; Yea, my lord, I know 
Your wish, and would obey- but riding first, 
I hear the violent threats you do not hear, 
I see the danger which you cannot see: 
Then not to give you warning, that seems 

(hard ; 
Almost beyond me : yet I would obey." 

.,Yea so," said he, „do it : be not too wise,: 
Seeing that ye are wedded to a man, 
Xot quite mismated with a yawning clown. 
But one with arms to guard his head and 

(youi-s, 
With eyes to find you out however far, 
And ears to hear you even in his dreams." 

With that he turn'd and look'd as keenly 

';at her 
As careful robins eye the delver's toil; 
And that within her, which a wanton fool, 
Or hasty judger would have call'd her guilt, 
Made her cheek burn and eitlier eyelid^fall. 
And Gernint look'd and was not satisfied. 



Then forward by a way which, beaten 
(broad, 

Led from the territory to false Limours 

To the waste earldom* of another earl. 

Doorm, whom his shaking vassals call'd 
(the Bull, 

Went Enid with her sullen follower on. 

Once she look'd back, and when she saw 
(him ride 

More near by many a rood than yester-morn. 

It welLuigh made her cheerful;' till Geraint 

Waving an angry hand as who should say 

.,Ye watch me,'' sadden'd all her heart 
! (again. 

I But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade, 
j The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof 

Smote on her ear, and turning round she 
(saw 

Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it. 

Then not to disobey her lord's behest, 
j And yet to give hiin warning, for he rode 
I As ii he heard not, moving b'ack she held 
j Her finger up, and pointed to the dust. 
I At which the warrior in his obstinacy, 

Because she kept the letter of his word 

Was in a manner pleased, and turning, 
(stood, 

And in the moment after wild Limours, 

Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud 

Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking 
1 (storm, 

! Half ridden off with by the thing he rode, 
I And all in passion uttering a dry shriek, ■ 
I Dash'd on Geraint, who closed with him, 
I (and bore 

Down by the length of lance and armbeyond 

The crupper, and so left him stuun'd or 
! rdead, 

! And overthrew the next that follow'd him, 
: And blindly rush'd on all the rent behind. 
, But at the flash and motion of the man 
' They vanish'd panic-stricken, like a shoul 

Of darting fish : that on a summer morn 
I Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot 

Come slipping* o'er their shadows on the 
j (sand, 
' But if a man who stands upon the brink 

But lift a shining hand against the sun, 
; There is not left the twinkle of a fin 

Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower, 
j So, scared but at the motion of the man, 
; Eled all the boon companions of the Earl, 

And left him lying in the public way; 

So vanish friendships only made in wine. 



276 



rOYLLS OF THE KING. 



Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Ge- 

(raint, 
Who saw the chargers of the two that fell 
Start from their fallen lords, and wildly fly, 
Mixt with the flyers. ,,Horse and man," he 

(said, 
„A11 of one mind and all right-honest 

(friends! 
Not a hoof left : and I methinks till now 
Was honest — paid with horses and with 

(arms; 
I cannot steal or plunder, no nor beg: 
And so what say ye, shall we strip him 

(there 
Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough 
To bear his armour ? shall we fast, or dine ? 
No? — then do you, being right honest, 

(pray 
That we may meet the horsemen of Earl 

(Doorm, 
I too would still be honest." Thus he said: 
And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins, 
And answering not one word, she led the 

(way. 

But as a man to whom a dreadful loss 
Falls in a far land and he knows it not. 
But coming back he learns it, and the loss 
So pains him that he sickens nigh to death ; 
So fared it with Geraint, who being prick'd 
In combat with the follower of Limours, 
Bled underneath his armour secretly. 
And so rode on, nor told his gentle wife 
What ail'd him, hardly knowing it himself. 
Till his eye darken'd and his helmet wagg'd; 
And at a sudden swerving of the road, 
Tho' happily down on a bank of grass, 
The Prince, without a word, from his horse 

(fell. 

And Enid heard the clashing of his fall, 
Suddenly came, and at his side all pale 
Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his 

(arms, 
Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye 
Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound, 
And tearing off her veil of faded silk 
Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun, 
And swathed the hurt that drain'd her dear 

(lord's life. 
Then after all was done that hand could do, 
She rested, and her desolation came 
Upon her, and she wept beside the way. 

And many past, but none regarded her, 
For in that realm of lawless turbulence. 



A woman weeping for hermurder'd mate 
Was cared as much for as a summer shower ■ 
One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm, 
Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him : 
Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms. 
Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl; 
Half whistling and half singing a coarse 

(song. 
He drove the dust against her veillesseyes. 
Another, flying from the v^rath of Doorm 
Before an ever-fancied arrow, made 
The long way smoke beneath him in his fear; 
At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel, 
And scour'd into the coppices and was lost, 
While the great charger stood, grieved like 

(a man. 

But at the point of noon the huge Earl 

(Doorm, 
Broad-faced with under-fringe of russet i 

(beard. 
Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey. 
Came riding with a hundred lances up ; 
But ere he came, like one that hails a ship, 
Criedoutwithabigvoice,/,What,ishedead?" 
„No, no, not dead!" she answer'd in all 

(haste. 
„Would some of your kind people take him 

(up, 
And bear him hence out of this cruel sun: 
Most sure am I, quite sure, he is not dead." 

Then said Earl Doorm ; Well, if he be not 

(dead, 
Why wail eye for him thus? ye seem a child. 
And be he dead, I count you for a fool; 
Your wailing will not quicken him : dead 

(or not. 
Ye mar a comely face with idiot tears. 
Yet, since the face is comely — some of you, 
Here, take him up, and bear him to our hall : 
And if he live, we will havehim of our band; 
And if he die, why earth has earth enough 
To hide him. See ye take the charger too, 
A noble one." 

He spake, and past away, 
But left two brawny spearmen, who advan- 

(ced. 
Each growling like a dog, when his good 

(bone 
Seems to be pluck'd at by the village boys 
Who love to vex him eating, and he fears 
To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it. 
Gnawing and growling: so the ruffians 

(growl" 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



277 



Feavins: to lose, and all for a dead man, 
Their chance of booty from the morning's 

(raid ; 
Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier, 
Such as they brought upon their forays out 
Tor those that might be wounded; laid him 

(on it 
All in the iiollow of his shield, and took 
And bore him to the naked hall of Doorm, 
(His gentle charger following him unled) 
And cast him and the bier in which he lay 
Down on an oaken settle in the hall, 
And then departed, hot in haste to join 
Their luckier mates, but growling as before, 
And cursing their lost time, and the dead 

(man, 
And their own Earl, and their own souls, 

(and her. 
They might as well have blest her : she was 

(deaf 
To blessing or to cursing save from one. 

So for long hours sat Enid by her lord. 
There in the naked hall, propping his head. 
And chafing his pale hands, and calling to 

(him. 
And at the last he waken'd from his swoon, 
And found his own dear bride propping his 

(head, 
And chafing his faint hands, and calling to 

(him; 
And felt the warm tears falling on his face; 
And said to his own heart, „ she weeps for 

(me :" 
And yet lay still, and feign'd, himself as 

(dead, 
That he might prove her to the uttermost. 
And say to his own heart ,/She weeps for 

(me," 

But in the falling afternoon return'd 
The huge Earl Doorm with plunder to the 

(hall. 
His lusty spearmen followed him with noise: 
Each hurling down a heap of things that 

(rang 
Against the pavement, cast his lance aside, 
And doff'd his helm : and then there flut- 

(ter'd in. 
Half-bold, half- frighted, with dilated eyes, 
A tribe of women, dress'd in many hues. 
And mingled with the spearmen : and Earl 

(Doorm 
truck with a knife's haft hard against the 

(board, 



And calPd for flesh and wine to feed his 



And men brought in whole hogs and quarter 

(beeves, 
And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh: 
And none spake word, but all sat down at 

(once, 
And ate with tumult in the naked hall, 
Feeding like horses when you hear them 

(feed ; 
Till Enid shrank far back into herself. 
To shun the wild ways of the lawless tribe. 
But when Earl Doorm had eaten all he 

(would. 
He roll'd his 6yes about the hall, and found 
A damsel drooping in a corner of it. 
Then he remember'd her, and how she wept ; 
And out of her there came a power upon 

(him; 
And rising on the sudden he said, „Eat ! 
1 never yet beheld a thing so pale 
God's curse, it makes me mad to see you 

(weep. 
Eat! Look yourself. Good luck had your 

(good man, 
Eor were I dead who is it would weep for me? 
Sweet lady, never since I first drew breath, 
Have 1 beheld a lily like yourself. 
And so there lived some colour in your 

(cheek. 
There is not one among my gentlewomen 
Were fit to wear your slipper for a glove. 
But listen to me, and by me be ruled. 
And I will do the thing I have not done, 
For you shall share my earldom with me, 

(gii'lj 
And we wil live like two birds in one nest. 
And I will fetch you forage from all fields, 
For I compel all creatures to my will." 

He spoke: the brawny spearman let his 

(cheek 
Bulge with the unswallow'd piece, and 

(turning stared; 
"While some, whose souls the old serpent 

(long had draw'n 
Down, as the worm draws in the wither'd 

(leaf 
And makes it earth, hiss'd each at other's ear 
What shall not be recorded — women they. 
Women, or what had been those gracioiis 

(things, 
But now desired the humbling of their 



278 



IDYLLS OF TEE KING 



Yea, would have helped him to it: and all 

(at once 
They hated her, who took no thought of 

(them, 
But answered in low voice, her meek head 

(yet 

Drooping, „I pray you of your courtesy. 
He being as he is, to let me he." 

She spake so low he hardly heard her 

(speak, 
But like a mighty patron, satisfied 
Witli what himself had done so graciously, 
Assumed that she had thanked him, add- 

(iug, „yeu, 
Eat and be glad, for I account you mine." 

She answer'd meekly, „How should I be 

(glad 
Henceforth in all the world at anything. 
Until my lord arise and look upon me?" 

Here the huge Earl cried out upon her 

(talk, 
As all but empty heart and weariness 
And sickly nothing: suddenly seized on her, 
And bare her by main violence to the board, 
And thrust the dish before her, crvinsr, 

(.Eat." " 

,,No, no, said Enic*, vext, ,,I will not eat. 
Till yonder man upon the bier arise, 
And eat with me.,, ,/Drink, then," he ans- 

wer'd. ,/Here!" 
(And fill*d a horn with wine and held it to 

(her,) 
,/Lo! I, myself, when flush'd with fight, or 

(hot, 
God's curse, with anger — often I myself. 
Before 1 well have drunken, scarce can eat : 
Drink therefore and the wine will change 

(your will." 

„iS'ot so," she cried, „by Heaven, I will not 

(drink, 
Till my dear lord arise and bid me do it. 
And drink with me ; and if he rose no more, 
I will not look at wine until I die." 
At this he turn'd all red and paced his hall, 
Now gnaw'd his under, now his upper lip, 
And coming up close to her, said at last; 
„Girl, for I see ye scorn my courtesies, 
Take warning: yonder man is surely dead; 
And I compel all creatures to my will 
xsot eat nor drink? And wherefore wail for 

(one, 
Who put your beauty to tb is flout and scorn 



By dressing it in rags? Amazed am I, 
Beholding how ye butt against my wish, 
That I forbear yon thus : cross me no more. 
At least put off to please me this poor gown , 
This silken rag, this beggar-woman's weed : 
I love that beauty should go beautifully: 
For see ye not my gentlewomen here, 
How gay, how suited to the house of one, 
Who loves that beauty should go beauti- 

(fully! 
Rise therefore ; robe yourself in this : obey." 

He spoke, and one among his gentle- 

(women 
Display'd a splendid silk of foreign loom, 
Where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue 
Play'd into green, and thicker down the 

(front 
With jewels than the sward with drops of 

(dew, 
When all night long a cloud clings to the 

(hill. 
And with the dawn ascending lets the day 
Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the 

(gems. 

But Enid answer'd. harder to be moved 
Than hardest tyrants in their day of power, 
With life-long injuries burning unavenged, 
And now their hour has come ; and Enid 

(said : 

„In this poor gown my dear lord found 

(me first, 
And loved me serving in my father's hall : 
In this poor gown I rode with him to court, 
And there the Queen array'd me like the sun: 
In this poor gown he bade me clothe myself. 
When now we rode upon this fatal quest 
Of honour, where no honour can be gain'd: 
And this poor gown I will not cast aside 
Until himself arise a living man. 
And bid me cast it. I have griefs enough : 
Pray you be gentle, pray you let me be: 
I never loved, can never love but him : 
Yea, God, I pray you of your gentleness, 
He being as he is', to let me be." 

Then strode the brute Earl up and down 

(his hall. 
And took his russet beard between his teeth: 
Last, coming up quite close, and in his mood 
Crying, „I count if of no more avail, 
Dame^to he gentle than ungentle with you; 
Take my salute," unknightly with flat hand, 
However lightly, smote her on the cheek. 



GERAINT AND ENID. 



279 



Then Enid, in lier utter helplessness, 
And since she thought, she had not dared to 

(do it, 
Except he surely knew my lord was dead," 
Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry, 
As of a wild thing taken in the trap, 
Which sees the trapper coming thro' the 

(wood. 

This heard Geraint, and grasping at his 

(sword, 
(It lay beside him in the hollow shield). 
Made but a single bound, and with a sweep 

(of it 
Shore thro' the swarthy neck, and like a ball 
The russet-bearded head roll'd on the floor. 
So died Earl Doorm by him he counted dead. 
And all the men and women in the hall 
Rose when they saw the dead man rise, and 

(fled 
Yelling as from a spectre, and the two 
Were left alone together, and he said : 

„Enid, I have used you worse than that 

(dead man ; 
Done you more wrong : we both have under- 

(gone 
That trouble which has left me thrice your 

(own: 
Henceforward I will rather die than doubt. 
And here I lay this penance on myself, 
Not, tho' mine own ears heard you yester- 

(morn — 
You thought me sleeping, but I heard you 

(say, 
I heard you say, that you were no true wife: 
I swear I will not ask your meaning in it : 
I do believe yourself against yourself, 
And will henceforward rather die than 

(doubt." 

And Enid could not say one tender word, 
She felt so blunt and stupid at the heart : 
She only prayed him, „Ely, they will return 
And slay you : fly, your charger is without, 
My palfrey lost. " „Then, Enid, shall you ride 
Behind me." //Yea, said Enid, „let us go." 
And moving out they found the stately horse, 
Who now no more a vassal to the thief, 
But free to stretch his limbs in lawful fight, 
Neigh'd with all gladness as they came and 

(stoop'd 
With a low whinny toward the pair, and she 
Kiss'd the white star upon his noble front, 
Glad also ; then Geraint upon the horse 



Mounted, and reach'd a hand, and on his foot 
She set her own and climb'd ; he turn'd his 

(face 
And kiss*d her climbing, and she cast her 

(arms 
About him, and at once they rode away. 

And never yet, since high in Paradise 
O'er the four rivers first roses blew, 
Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind 
Than lived thro' her, who in tliat perilous 

(hour 
Put hand to hand beneath her husband's 

(heart. 
And felt him hers again: she did not weep, 
But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist 
Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain : 
Yet not so misty were her meek blue eyes 
As not to see before them on the path, 
Right in the gateway of the bandit hold, 
A knight of Arthur's court,who laid his lance 
In rest, and made as if to fall upon him. 
Then, fearing for his hurt and loss of blood. 
She, with her mind all full of what had 

(chanced, 
Shriek'd to the stranger, „Stay not a dead 
. (man!" 

„The voice of Enid, said the knight; but she, 
Beholding it was Edyrn son of Nudd, 
Was moved so much the more, and shriek'd 

(again, 
„0 cousin, slay not him who gave you life" 
And Edyrn moving frankly forward spake : 
„My lord Geraint, I greet you witti all love ; 
I took you for a bandit knight of Doorm; 
And fear not, Enid, I should fall upon him, 
Who love you, Prince, with something of the 

(love 
Wherewith we love the Heaven that chas- 

(tens us. 
Eor once, when I was up so high in pride 
That I was halfway down the slope to Hell, 
By overthrowing me you threw me higher. 
Now, made a knight of Arthur's Table 

(Round, 
And since I knew this Earl, when I myself 
Was half a bandit in my lawless hour, 
I come the mouthpiece of our King to 

(Doorm 
(The King is close behind me) bidding him 
Disband himself, and scatter all his powers 
Submit, arid hear the judgment of the 

(King." 



380 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



„He hears the judj,'mcijt of the King of 

(Kings," 
Cried the wau Prince; ,/and lo the powers 

(of Doorm 
Are scatter'd/' and he pointed to the field, 
AVhere, huddled here and there on mound 

(and knoll. 
Were men and women staring and aghast, 
While some yet iied; and then he plainlier 

(told 
How the huge Earl lay slain within his hall. 
But when the knight besought him, „Fol- 

(low me, 
Prince, to the camp, and in the King's own 

(ear 
Speak what has chanced; ye surely have 

(endured 
Strange chances here alone; that other 

(tlush'd, 
And hung his head, and halted in reply, 
Tearing the mild face of the blameless 

(King, 
And after madness acted question ask'd: 
Till Edyrn crying, „Ifye will not go 
To Arthur, then will Arthur come to you." 
^Enough," he said, „1 follow, and they 

(went. 
But Enid in their going had two fears, 
One from the bandit scattered in the field, 
And one from Edyrn. Every now and then. 
When Edyrn rein'd his charger at her side, 
She shrank a little. In a hollow land, 
Erom which old fires have broken, men may 

(fear 
Fresh fire and ruin. He, perceiving, said : 

„Eair and dear cousin, you that most had 

(cause 
To fear me, fear no longer, I am changed. 
Yourself were first the blameless cause to 

(make 
My nature's prideful sparkle in the blood 
Break into furious flame ; being repulsed 
By Yniol and yourself, I schemed and 

(wrought 
Until I overturn'd him ; then set up 
(With one main purpose ever at my heart) 
My hauglity jousts, and took a paramour; 
Did her mock-honour as the fairest fair. 
And, toppling over all antagonism, 
So wax'd in pride, that I believed myself 
Unconquerable, for I was well-nigh mad : 
And, but for ray main purpose in these 

(jousts. 



I should have slain your father, seized 

(yourself. 
I lived in hope that sometime you would 

(come 
To these my lists with him whom best you 

(loved; 
And there, poor cousin, with your meek 

(blue eyes. 
The truest eyes that ever answer'd heaven, 
Behold me overturn and trample on him. 
Then, had you cried, or knelt, or pray'd to 

(me, 
I should not less have kill'd him. And you 

(came, — 
But once you came, — and with your own 

(true eyes 
Beheld the man you loved (I speak as one 
Speaks of a service done him) overthrow 
My proud self, and my purpose three years 

(old, 
xind set his foot upon me, and give me life. 
There was I broken down; there was I 

(saved : 
Tno' thence I rode all-shamed, hating the 

(life 
He gave me, meaning to be rid of it. 
And all the penance the Queen laid upon me 
Was but to rest awhile within her court ; 
Where first as sullen as a beast new-caged. 
And waiting to be treated like a wolf, 
Because I knew my deeds were known, I 

(found. 
Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn. 
Such fine reserve and noble reticence. 
Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace 
Of tenderest courtesy, that I began 
To glance behind me at my former life, 
And find that it had been the wolf's indeed -. 
And oft I talk'd with Dubric, the high 

(saint. 
Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, 
Which, when it weds with manhood, makes 

(a man. 
And you were often there about the Queen, 
But saw me not, or mark'd not if you saw ; 
]N'or did I care or dare to speak with you, 
But kept myself aloof till I was changed ; 
And fear not, cousin , I am changed in- 

(deed.'- 

He spoke, and Enid easily believed, 
Like simple noble natures, credulous 
Of what they long for, good in friend or foe> 



GERJINT JND BNID. 



^81 



There most in those who most have done 

(them ill.* 
And when they reach'd the camp the King 

(himself 
Advanced to irreet them, and beholding her 
Tho' pale, yet happy ask'd her not a word. 
But went apart with Edyrn, whom he held 
In converse for a little, and return'd. 
And, gravely smiling, lifted her from horse, 
And kiss'd her with all pureness, hrother- 

(like. 
And show'd an empty tent allotted her, 
And glancing for a minute, till he saw her 
Pass into it, tiirn'd to the Prince, and said : 

„Prince, when of late ye pray'd me for my 

(leave 
To move to your own land, and there defend 
Your marches, I was prick'd with some re- 

(proof, 
As one that let foul wrong stagnate and be, 
By having look'd too much thro' alien eyes, 
And wrought too long with delegated hands, 
Not used mine own : but now behold me 

(come 
To cleanse this common sewer of all my 

(realm, 
With Edyrn and with others: have ye look'd 
At Edyrn ? have ye seen how nobly changed ? 
This work of his is great and wonderful. 
His very face Y/ith change of heart is 

(changed ? 
The world will not believe a man repents : 
And this wise world of ours is mainly right. 
Pull seldom does a man repent, or use 
Both grace and will to pick the vicious 

(quitch 
Of blood and custom wholly out of him. 
And make all clean, andplant himself afresh. 
Edyrn has done it, weeding all his heart 
As I will weed this land before I go. 
I, therefore, made him of our Table Round, 
Not rashly, but have proved him everyway 
One of our noblest, our most valorous, 
Sanest and most obedient : and indeed 
This work of Edyrn wrought upon himself 
After a life of violence, seems to me 
A thousand-fold more great and wonderful 
Than if some knight of mine,risking his life, 
My subject with my subject under him, 
Should make an onslaught single on a realm 
Of robbers, tho' he slew them one by one, 
And were himself nigh wounded to the 
(death." 



So spake the King; low bow'd the Prince 

(and felt 
His work was neither great nor wonderful. 
And past to Enid's tent ; and thither came 
The King's own leech to look into his hurt ; 
And Enid tended on him there; and there 
Her constant motion round him, and the 

(breath 
Of her sweet tendance hovering over him, 
Fill'd all the genial courses of his blood 
With deeper and with ever deeper love. 
As the south-west that blowing Bala lake 
Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days. 

But while Geraint lay healing of his hurt, 
The blameless King went forth and cast 

(his eyes 
On each of all whom Uther left in charge 
Long since, to guard the justice of the King: 
He look'd and'found them wanting ; and as 

(now 
Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire 

(hills 
To keep him brigM and clean as heretofore, 
He rooted out the slothful officer 
Or guilty, which for bribe had wink'd at 

(wrong, 
And in their chairs set up a stronger race 
With hearts and hands, and sent athousand 

(men 
To till the wastes, and moving everywhere 
Clear'd the dark places and let in the law, 
And broke the bandit holds and cleansed the 

(land. 

Then, when Geraint was whole again, they 

(past 
With Arthur to Caerleon upon Usk. 
There the great Queen once more embraced 

(her friend 
And clothed her in apparel like the day. 
And tho' Geraint could never take again 
That comfort from their converse which he 

(took 
Before the Queen's fair name was breathed 

(upon, 
He rested well content that all was well. 
Thence after tarrying for a space they rode, 
And fifty knights rode with them to the 

(shores 
Of Severn, and they past to their own land. 
And there he kept the justice of the King 
So vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts 
Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died: 
And being ever foremost in the chase. 



IDYLLS OF THE KING, 



And victor at the tilt and tournament, 
They call'd him the great Prince and man 

(of men. 
But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call 
Enid the fair, a grateful people named 
Enid the Good ; and in their halls arose 
The cry of ciiildren, Enids and Geraints 
Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more 
But rested in her fealty, till he crown'd 
A happy life with a fair death, and fell 
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea 
In battle, fighting for the blameless King. 

MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 
A STOEM was coming, but the winds were 

(still. 
And in the wild woods of Broceliande, 
Before an oak, so hollow huge and old 
It look'd a tower of ruin'd masonwork, 
At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay. 

The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court: 
She hated all the knights, and heard in 

(thought 
Their lavish comment when her name was 

(named. 
For once, when Arthur walking all alone, 
Vext at a rumour rife about the Queen, 
Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair. 
Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy 

(mood 
With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice, 
And flutter'd adoration, and at last 
With dark sweet hints of some who prized 

(him more 
Than who should prize him most ; at which 

(the King 
Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by : 
But one had watch'd and had not held his 

(peace : 
It made the laughter of an afternoon 
That Vivien should attempt the blameless 

(King. 
And after that, she set herself to gain 
Him, the most famous man of all thosetimes. 
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts. 
Had built the King his havens, ships, and 

(halls. 
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens; 
The people calrd him Wizard; whom at first 
She play'd about with slight and sprightly 

(talk. 
And vivid 3niiles,and faintly-venom'd points 
Of slander, glancing here and grazing there ; 



And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer 
Would watch her at her petu]ance,and play, 
Ev'n when they seem'd unloveable, and 

(laugh 
As those that watch a kittei^ ; thus he grew 
Tolerant of what he half disdain.'d, and she. 
Perceiving that she was but half disdain'd. 
Began to break her sports with graver fits. 
Turn red or pale, would often when they met 
Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him 
With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, 
Tho' doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times 
Would flatter his own wish in age for love. 
And half believe her true : for thus at times 
He waver 'd ; but that other clung to him, 
Eixt in her will, and so the seasons went. 
Then fell upon him a great melancholy ; 
And leaving Arthur's court he gain'd the 

(beach; 
There found a little boat, and stept into it : 
And Vivien follow'd, but he mark'd her not. 
She took the helm and he the sail ; the boat 
Drave with a sudden wind across the deeps. 
And touching Breton sands, they disem- 

(bark'd. 
And then she follow'd Merlin all the way, 
Ev'n to the wild woods of Broceliande. 
Eor Merlin once had told her of a charm. 
The which if any wrought on any one 
With woven paces and with waving arms. 
The man so wrought on ever seem'd to lie 
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, 
From which was no escape for evermore ; 
And none could find that man for evermore, 
Nor could he see but him who wrought the 

(charm 
Coming and going, and he lay as dead 
And lost to life and use and name and fame. 
And Vivien ever sought to work the charm 
Upon the great Enchanter of the Time, 
As fancying that her glory would be great 
According to his greatness whom slie 

(quench'd. 

There lay she all her length and kiss'd his 

(feet. 
As if in deepest reverence and in love. 
A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe 
Of samite without price, that more exprest 
Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs. 
In colour like the satin-shining palm 
On sallows in the windy gleams of March : 
And while she kiss'd them, crying, ^Trample 

(me, 



MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 



283 



Dear feet, that I have follow'd thro' the 

(world, 
And I will pay you worship; tread me down 
And I will kiss you for it ;" he was mute ; 
So dark a forethought roll'd about his brain, 
As on a dull day in an Ocean cave 
The blind wave feeling round his long sea- 

(haU 
In silence : wherefore, when she lifted up 
A face of sad appeal, and spake and said, 
„0 Merlin, do ye love me?" and again, 
„0 Merlin, do ye love me?" and once more, 
„Great Master, do ye love me?" he was mute. 
And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel. 
Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and 

(sat. 
Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet 
Together, curved an arm about his neck. 
Clung like a snake; and letting her left hand 
Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf, 
Made with her right a comb of pearl to part 
The lists of such a beard as youth gone out 
Had left in ashes : then he spoke and said, 
IS'ot looking at her, „ who are wise in love 
Love most, say least," and Vivien answefd 

(quick, 
„1 saw the little elf-god eyeless once 
In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot : 
Butneithereyesnor tongue — stupid child! 
Yet you are wise who say it; let me think 
Silence is wisdom : I am silent then 
And ask no kiss;" then adding all at once, 
„ And lo, I clothe myself with wisdom," drew 
The vast and shaggy mantle of his beard 
Across her neck and bosom to her knee, 
And call'd herself a gilded summer fly 
Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web, 
Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood 
Without one word. So Vivien call'd herself. 
But rather seem'd a lovely baleful star 
Veil'din gray vapour; till he sadly smiled: 
„To what request for what strange boon," 

(he said, 
„Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries, 

Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks. 
For these have broken up my melancholy." 

And Vivien answer'd smiling saucily, 
,; What, my Master, have ye found your 
(voice ? 

1 bid the stranger welcome. Thanks at last ! 
But yesterday you never open'd lip, 
Except indeed to drink : no cup had we : 
In mine own lady palms I cull'd the spring 



That gather'd trickling dropwise from the 

(cleft. 
And made a pretty cup of both my hands 
And offer'd you it kneeling .- then ye drank 
And knew no more, nor gave me one poor 

(word ; 
no more thanks than might a goat have 

(given 
With no more sign of reverence than a beard . 
And when we halted at that other well, 
And I was faint to swooning, and ye lay 
Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those 
Deep meadows we had traversed, did you 

(know 
That Vivien bathed your feet before her 

(own? 
And yet no thanks: and all thro' this wild 

(wood 
And all this morning when I fondled you: 
Boon, yes, there was a boon, one not so 

(strange — 
How had I wrong'd you? surely you are 

(wise. 
But such a silence is more wise than kind." 

And Merlin lock'd his hand in hers and 

(said; 
.,0 did you never lie upon the shore. 
And watch the curl'd white of the coming 

(wave 
Glass'd in the slippery sand before it breaks 
Ev'n such a wave, but not so pleasurable. 
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood, 
Had I for three days seen, ready to fall. 
And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court 
Tobreakthemood. Youfollow'dmeunask'd; 
And when I look'd, and saw you followine: 

(still. 
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing 
In that mind-mist: for shall I tell you 

(truth? 
Ton seem'd that wave about to break upon 

(me 
And sweep me from my hold upon the 

(world. 
My use and name and fame. Your pardon, 

(child. 
Your pretty sports have brighten'd all again. 
And ask your l)Oon, for boon I own you 

(thrice. 
Once for wrong done you by confusion, next 
For thanks it seems till now neglected, last 
For these your dainty gambols: wherefore 

(ask; 



284 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



And take this boon so strange and not so 
(strange." 

And Vivien answer'd smiling: mournfully • 
.,0 not so strange as my long asking it, 
Nor yet so strange as you yourself are 

(strange, 
Nor half so strange as that dark mood of 

(yours. 
I ever fear'd ye were not wholly mine -. 
And see, yourself have own*d ye did me 

(wrong. 
The people call you prophet : let it be: 
But not of those that can expound them- 

(selves. 
Tuke Vivien for expounder; she will call 
That three-days-long presageful gloom of 

(yours 
No presage, but the same mistrustful mood 
That makes you seem less noble than vour- 

(self, 
Whenever I have ask'd this very boon, 
Now ask'd again : for see you not, dear love. 
That such a" mood as that, wliich lately 

(gloom'd 
Your fancy when you saw me following you. 
Must make me fear still more you are not 

(mine, 
Must make me yearn still more to prove 

(you mine. 
And make me wish still more to learn this 

(charm 
Of woven paces and of waving hands, 
As proof of trust. 0, Merlin, teach it me. 
The charm so taught will charm us both to 

(rest. 
Tor, grant me some slight power upon your 

(fate, 
I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust, 
Should rest and let you rest, knowing you 

(mine 
And therefore be as great as you are named, 
Not muffled round with selfish reticence. 
How hard you look and how denyingly ! 
0, if you think this wickedness in me,' 
That I should prove it on you unawares, 
To make you lose your use and name and 

(fame. 
That makes me most indignant; then our 

(bond 
Had best be loosed for ever : but think or not. 
By Heaven that liears I tell vou the clean 

(truth 
As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk : 



Merlin, may this eartli, if ever I, 

If these unwitty wandering wits of mine, 
Ev'n in the jumbled rubbish of a dream. 
Have tript on such conjectural treachery — 
May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell 
Down, down, and close again, and nip me 

(flat. 
If I be such a traitress, Yield my boon, 
Till which I scarce can yield you all I am: 
And grant my re-reiterated wish, 
The great proof of your love: because 1 

(think. 
However wise, ye hardly know me yet.'- 

And Merlin loosed his hand from hers 

(and said, 
„I never was less wise, however wise. 
Too curious Vivien, tho' you talk of trust. 
Then when I told you first of such a charm. 
Yea, if ye talk of trust I tell you this, 
Too much I trusted, when I told you that, 
And stirr'd this vice in you which ruin'd 

(man 
Thro' woman the first hour; for howsoe'er 
In children a great curiousness be well, 
Who have to learn themselves and all the 

(world, 
In you, that are not child, for still I find 
Y'our face is practised, when I spell the lines, 

1 call it, — well, I will not call it vice: 
But since you name yourselfthe summer fly, 
I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat, 
That settles, beaten back, and beaten back 
Settles, till one could yield weariness : 
But since I will not yield to give you power 
Upon my life and use and name and fame, 
Why will you never ask some other boon? 
Yea', by God's rood, I trusted you too much." 

And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted 

(maid 
That ever bided tryst at village stile, 
;Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears. 
,/Nay, master, be not wrathful with your 

(maid; 
Caress her: let her feel herself forgiven 
Who feels no heart to ask another boon. 
I think you hardly know the tender rhyme 
Of 'trust me not at all or all in all.' 
I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once, 
And it shall answer for me. Listen to it. 

'In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours. 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers : _ 
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 



MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 



285 



'It is the little rift within the lute, 
That by and by will make the music mute, 
And ever widening slowly silence all. 

'The little rift within the lover's lute 
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, 
That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 

„It is not worth the keeping: let it go : 
But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. 
And trust me not at all or all in all. 
0, master, do ye love my tender rhyme?" 

And Merlin look'd and half believed her 

(true. 
So tender was her voice, so fair her face, 
So sweetly gleam'd her eyes behind her tears 
Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower : 
And yet he answer'd half indignantly. 

„rar other was the song that once I heard 
By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit: 
For here we met, some ten or twelve of us, 
To chase a creature that was current then 
In these wild woods, the hart with golden 

(horns. 
It was the time when first the question rose 
About the founding of a Table Round, 
That was to be, for love of God and men 
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world. 
And each incited each to noble deeds. 
And while we waited, one,the youngest of us, 
We could not keep him silent, out he flash'd, 
And into such a song, such fire for fame. 
Such trumpet-blowings in it, coming down 
To such a stern and iron-clashing close, 
That when he stopt we long'd to hurl to- 

(gether, 
And should have done it; but the beauteous 

(beast 
Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet. 
And like a silver shadow slipt away 
Thro' the dim land: and all day long w^erode 
Thro' the dim land against a rushing wind. 
That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, 
And chased the flashes of his golden horns 
Until they vanish'd by the fairy well 
That laughs at iron — as our warriors did — 
Where children cast their pins and nails, and 

(cry, 
„Laugh, little well," but touch it with a 

(sword, 
It buzzes wildly round the point ; and there 
We lost him : such a noble song was that. 
But Vivien, when you sang me that sweet 

(rhyme, 



I felt as tho' you knew this cursed charm, 
Were proving it on me, and that I lay 
And felt them slowly ebbing, name and 
(fame," 

And Vivien answer'd smiling mournfully; 
„0 mine have ebb'd away for evermore, 
And all thro' following you to this wild 

(wood. 
Because I saw you sad, to comfort you. 
Lo now, what hearts have men ! they never 

(mount 
As high as woman in her selfless mood. 
And touching fame, howe'er ye scorn my 

(song, 
Take one verse more — the lady speaks it — 

(this: 

„My name, once mine, now thine, is 

(closelier mine, 
For fame, could fame be mine, that fame 

(were thine, 
And shame, could shame be thine, that 

(shame were mine. 
So trust me not at all in all." 

„Says she not well? and there is more — 

(this rhyme 
Is like the' fair pearl-necklace of the Queen, 
That burst in dancing, and the pearls were 

(spilt ; 

Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept. 
But nevermore the same two sister pearls 
Ran down the silken thread to kiss each 

(other 
On her white neck — so is it with this 

(rhyme : 
It. lives dispersedly in many hands, 
And every minstrel sings it differently ; 
Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls; 
'Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes 

(to love.' 
True : Love, tho' Love were of the grossest, 

(carves 
A portion from the solid present, eats 
And uses, careless of the rest; but Fame 
The Fame that follows death is nothing to 

(us; 

And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, 
And couuterchanged with darkness? you 

(yourself 
Know well that Envy calls you Devil's son, 
And since you seem the Master of all Art, 
They fain would make you Master of all 

(Vice." 



286 



IDI'LLS OF THE KING. 



And Merlin locked his hands in hers and 

(said, 
„l once was looking for a magic weed, 
And found a fair young squire who sat 

(alone, 
Had carved himself a knightly shield of 

(wood, 
And then was painting on it fancied arms, 
Azure, an Eagle rising or, the Sun 
In dexter chief; the scroll „1 follow fame." 
And speaking not, but leaning over him, 
I took his brush and blotted out the bird, 
And made a Gardener putting in a graff, 
With this for motto, 'Rather use than fame. 
You should have seen him blush ; but after- 

(wards 
He made a stalwart knight. Vivien, 
For you, methinks you think you love me 

(well ; 
For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and 

(Love 
Should have some rest and pleasure in him- 

(self, 
Not ever be too curious for a boon. 
Too prurient for a proof against-the grain 
Of him you say you love : but Fame with 

(men, 
Being but ampler means to serve mankind. 
Should have small rest or pleasure in her- 

(self, 
But work as vassal to the larger love. 
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. 
Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again 
Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon ! 
What other? for men sought to prove me 

(vile. 
Because I wish'd to give them greater minds: 
And then did Envy call me Devil's son : 
The sick weak beast seeking to help herself 
By striking at her better, miss'd, and 

(brought 
Her own claw back, and wounded her own 

(heart. 
Sweet were the days when I was all un- 

(known. 
But when my name was lifted up, the storm 
Broke on the mountain and I cared not for 

(it. 
Right well know I that Fame is half-dis- 

(fame. 
Yet needs must work my work. That other 

(fame, 
To one at least, who hath not children, 

(vague, 



The cackle of the unborn about the grave, 
I cared not for it : a single misty star, 
Which is the second in a line of stars 
That seem a sword beneath a belt of three, 
I never gazed upon it but I dreamt, 
Of some vast charm concluded in that star 
To make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I 

(fear. 
Giving you power 'upon me thro' this charm. 
That you might play me falsely, having 

(power. 
However well you think you love me now 
(As sons of kings loving in pupillage 
Have turn'd to tyrants when they came to 

power) 
I rather dread the loss of use than fame : 
If you — and not so much from wickedness, 
As some wild turn of anger, or a mood 
Of overstrain'd affection, it may be, 
To keep me all to your own self, or else 
A sudden spurt of woman's jealousy, — 
Should try this charm on whom you say 

(you love." 

And Vivien answer'd smiling as in wrath 
„Have Inot sworn? I am not trusted. Good 
Well, hide it, hide it ; I shall find it out; 
And being found take heed of Vivien. 
A woman and not trusted, doubtless I 
Might feel some sudden turn of anger born 
Of your misfaith ; and your fine epithet 
Is accurate too, for this full love of mine 
Without the full heart back may merit well 
Your term of overstrain'd. So used as I, 
My daily wonder is, I love at all. 
And as to woman's jealousy, why not? 

to what end, except a jealous one. 
And one to make me jealous if I love, 
Was this fair charm invented by yourself? 

1 well believe that all about this world 
Ye cage a buxom captive here and there. 
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower 
From which is no escape for evermore." 

Then the great Master merrily answer'd 

(her. 
„Full many a love in loving youth was mine, 
I needed then no charm to keep them mine 
But youth and love; and that full heart of 

(yours 
Whereof you prattle, may now assure you 

(mine ; 
So live uncharm'd. For those wlio wrought 

(it first, 



MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 



287 



The wrist is parted from the hand that 

(waved, 
The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones 
Who paced it, ages back: but will ye hear 
The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme V 

,/ There lived a king in the most Eastern 

(East, 
Less old than T, yet older, for my blood 
Hath earnest in'it of far springs to be. 
A tawny pirate anchor'd in his port, 
Whose bark had plunder'd twenty nameless 

(isles ; 
And passing one, at the high peep of dawn, 
He saw two cities in a thousand boats 
All fighting for a woman on the sea. 
And pushing his black craft among them 

(all, 
He lightly scatter'd theirs and brought her 

(off, 
Withloss of half his people arrow-slain; 
A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful, 
They said a light came from her when she 

(moved : 
And since the pirate would not yield her up, 
The King impaled him for his piracy ; 
Then made her Queen: but those isle-nur- 

(tur'd eyes 
Waged such unwilling tho' successful war 
On all the youth, they sikken'd; councils 

(thinn'd, 
And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew 
The rustiest iron of old fighters' hearts ; 
And beasts themselves would worship; 

(camels knelt 
Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back 
That carry kings in castles, bow'd black 

(knees 
Of homage,ringing with their serpent hands, 
To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells. 
What wonder, being jealous, that lie sent 
His horns of proclamation out thro' all 
The hundred under-kingdoms that he 

(sway'd 
To find a wizard who might teach the King 
Some charm, which being wrought upon the 

(Queen 
Might keep her all his own : to such a one 
He promised more than ever king has given, 
A league of mountain full of golden mines, 
A province with a hundred miles of coast, 
A palace and a princess, all for him : 
But on all those who tried and fail'djtheKing 
Pronounced a dismal senteuce,nieauiug l)y it 



To keep the list low and pretenders back. 
Or like a king, not to be trifled with — 
Their heads should moulder on the city gates. 
And many tried andfail'd,because the charm 
Of nature in her overbore their own : 
And many a wizard brow bleach'd on the 

(walls : 
And many weeks a troop of carrion crows 
Hung like a cloud above the gateway tow- 

(ers." 

And Vivien breaking in upon him, said: 
„I sit and gather honey : yet, methinks, 
Your tongue has tript a little: ask yourself. 
The lady never made nnivUling war 
With those fine eyes : she had lier pleasure 

(in it. 
And made her good man jealous with good 

(cause 
And lived there neither dame nor damsel 

(then 
Wroth at a lover's loss? were all as tame, 
I mean, as noble, as their Queen was fair? 
Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes, 
Or pinch a murderous dust into'her drink, 
Or make her paler with a poison'd rose? 
Well, those, were not our days: but did they 

(find 
A wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee?" 

She ceased, and made her lithe arm round 

(his neck 
Tighten, and then drew back, and let her 

(eyes 
Speak for her, glowing on him, like a 

(bride's 
On her new lord, her own, the first of men. 

He answer'd laughing, „Nay, not like to 

(me. 
At last they found — his foragers for 

(charms — 
A little glassy-headed hairless man, 
Who lived alone in a great wild on grass; 
Read but one book, and ever reading grew 
So grated down and filed away with 

(thought. 
So lean his eyes were monstrous; while the 

(skin 
Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and 

(spine. 
And since he kept his mind on one sole aim, 
Nor ever touch'd fierce wine, nor tasted 

(flesh. 
Nor own'd sensual wish, to him the wall 



288 



TNDFLLS OF TEE KIKG. 



That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting 

(men 
Became a crystal, and he saw them thro' it, 
And heard their voices talk behind the wall, 
And learnt their elemental secrets, powers 
xlnd forces; often o'er the sun's bright eye 
Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud, 
And lash'd it at the base w'ith slanting 

(storm; 
Or in the noon of mist and driving rain, 
When the lake whiten'd and the pinewood 

(roar'd, 
And the cairn'd mountain was a shadow, 

(sunn'd 
The world to peace again: here was the 

(man. 
And so by force they dragg'd him to the 

(King. 
And then he taught the King to charm the 

(Queen 
In such wise, that no man could see her 

(more, 
iS^or saw she save the King, who wrought 

(the charm, 
Coming and going, and she lay as dead, 
And lost all use of life : but when the King 
Made proffer of the league of golden mines. 
The province with a hundred miles of coast. 
The palace and the princess, that old man 
Went back to his old wild, and lived on 

(grass, 
And vanish'd, and his book came down to 

me." 

And Vivien answer'd smiling saucily; 
„You have the book: the charm is written 

(in it : 
Good: take my counsel: let me know it at 

(once : 
for keep it like a puzzle chest in chest. 
With each chest lock'd and padlock'd thirty 

(fold, 
And whelm all this beneath as vast a mound 
As after furious battle turfs the slain 
On some wild down above the windy deep, 
I yet should strike upon a sudden means 
To dig, pick, open, find and read the charm : 
Then, if I tried it, who should blame me 

(then?" 

And smiling as a Master smiles at one 
That is not of his school, nor any school 
Eut that where blind and maked'ignorance 
Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, 
On all things all day long; he answer'd her. 



„Tov read tlie book, niv pretty Vivien : 
ay, it is but twenty pages long, 
Bnt every page having an ample marge. 
And every marge enclosing in the midst 
A square of text tliat looks a little blot, 
The text no larger than the limbs of fleas ; 
And every square of text an awful charm, 
Writ in a language that has long gone by. 
So long, that mountains have arisen since 
With cities on their flanks — yov. read the 

(book 
And every margin scribbled, crost, and 

(cramm'd 
With comment, densest condensation, hard 
To mind and eye; but the long sleepless 

(nights 
Of my long life have made it easy to me. 
And none can read the text, not even I ; 
And none can read the comment but my- 

(self; 
And in the comment did I find the charm. 
0, the results are simple ; a m.ere child 
Might use it to the harm of any one, 
And never could undo it : ask no more: 
For tho' you should not prove it upon me. 
But keep that oath you swore, you might, 

(perchance, 
xissay it on some one of the Table Round, 
And all because you dream they babble of 

(you." 

And Vivien, frowning in true anger, said : 
„What dare the full-fed liars say of me? 
They ride abroad redressing human wrongs ! 
They sit with knife in meat and wine in 

(horn. 
They bound to holy vows of chastity ! 
Were I not woman, I could tell a tale. 
But you are man, you well can understand 
The shame that cannot be explain'd for 

(shame. 
Not one of all the drove should touch me : 

(swine!" 

Then answer'd Merlin careless of her 

(words. 
,y Ye breathe but accusation vast and vague, 
Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If ye 

(know, 
Set up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!'' 

And Vivien answer'd frowning wrathfully. 
/,0 ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him 
Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er hia 
(wife 



MERLIN AI^D VIVIEN. 



289 



.11] d two fair babes, and went to distant 

(lands; 
Was one year gone, and on returning found 
Not two but three: tbere lay the reckling, 

(one 
But one hour old ! What said thebappy sire? 
A seven months' babe had been a iruer gift. 
Those twelve sweet moons confused his 

(fatherhood." 

Then answer'd Merlin „Kay, I know the 

(tale. 
Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame : 
Some cause had kept him sunder'd from his 

(wife: 
One child they had: it lived with her : she 

(died: 
His kinsman travelling on his own affair 
Was charged by Valence to bring home the 

(child. 
He brought, not found it therefore : take the 

(truth." 

„0 ay," said Vivien, „overtrue a tale. 
What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore, 
That ardent man? 'to pluck the flower in 

(season;' 
So says the song, 'I trow it is no treason.' 

Master, shall we call him overquick 

To crop his own sweet rose before the 
(hour?" 

And Merlin answer'd „ Overquick are you 
To catch a lothly plume fall'n from the 

(wing 
Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole 

(prey 
Is man's good name : he never wrong'd his 

(bride. 

1 know the tale. An angry gust of wind 
Puff'd out his torch among the myriad- 

(room'd 
And many-corridor'd complexities 
Of Arthur's palace: then he found a door 
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament 
That wreathen round it made it seem his 

(own; 
And wearied out made for the couch and 

(slept, 
A stainless man beside a stainless maid; 
And either slept, nor knew of other there ; 
Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose 
In Arthur's casement glimmer'd chastely 

(down, 
Blushing upon them blushing, and at once 



He rose without a word and parted from 

(her: 
But when the thing was blazed about the 

(court. 
The brute world howling forced them into 

(bonds, 
And as it chanced they are happy, being 

(pure." 

,/0 ay," said Vivien, ,/that were likely too. 
What say ye tben to fair SirPercivale 
And of the borrid foulness that he wrought, 
The saintly youth, the spottless lamb of 

(Christ,' 
Or some black wether of St. Satan's fold. 
What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, 
Among the knightly brasses of the graves, 
And by the cold Hie Jacets of the dead!" 

And Merlin answer'd careless of her 

(charge, 
,, A sober man is Percivale and pure ; 
But once in life was fluster'd with new 

(wine, 
Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard ; 
Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught 
And meant to stamp him with her master's 

(mark ; 
And that he sinn'd, is not believable ; 
For, look upon his face! — but if he sinn'd. 
The sin that practice burns into the blood, 
And not the one dark hour which brings 

(remorse, 
Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be: 
Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns 
Are chanted in the minster, worse than all. 
But is your spleen froth'd out, or have ye 

(more?" 

And Vivien answer'd frowning yet in 

(wrath ; 
„0 ay ; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend ? 
Traitor or true? that commerce with the 

(Queen, 
I ask you, is it clamour'd by the child, 
Or whisper'd in the corner? do you know 

(it" 

• To which he answer'd sadly, „Yea, I 

(know it. 
Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first, 
To fetch her, and she took him for the King; 
So fixt her fancy on him : let him be. 
But have you no one word of loyal praise 
lor Arthur, blameless Kins: and stainless 

(man?" 

10 



290 



IDT LIS OF THE KING. 



She aiiswer'tl svitli a Low and chuckling 

(laugh ; 
,;Hini?is he man at all, who knows and 

(winks? 
Sees what his fair bride is and does, and 

(winks? 
By which the good king means to blind 

'(himself, 
And blinds himself and all the Table Round 
To all the foulness that they work. Myself 
Could call him (were it not for womanhood) 
The pretty, popular name such manhood 

(earns, ' 
Could call him the main cause of all tlieir 

(crime; 
Yea, were he not crown'd king, coward, and 

(fool.'' 

Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, 

(said : 
,0 true and tender 1 my liege and king ! 

selfless man and stainless gentleman. 
Who would'st against thine own eye- 

(witness fain 
Have all men true and leal, all women pure; 
How, in the mouths of base interpreters, 
From over-fineness not intelligible 
To things with every sense as false and foul 
As the poach'd filth that floods the middle 

(street. 
Is thy white blamelessness accounted 

(blame!" 

But Vivien deeming Merlin overborne 
By instance, recommenced, and let her 

(tongue 
Rage like a fire among the noblest names. 
Polluting, and imputing her whole self. 
Defaming and defacing, till she left 
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad 

(clean. 

Her words had issue other than she will'd. 
He dragg'd his eyebrow bushes down, and 

(made 
A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, 
And mutter'd in himself, „tell her the 

(charm ! 
■So, if she had it, would she rail on me 
To snare the next, and if she have it not, 
So will she rail. What did the wanton say? 
Not mount as high; we scarce can sink aslow: 
For men at most diff'er as Heaven and earth. 
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and 

(Hell. 

1 know the Tabic R..uud, my friends of old ; 



All brave, and many generous, and some 

(chaste. 
I think she cloaks the wounds of loss witl 

(lies ; 
I do believe she tempted them and fail'd, 
She is so bitter : for fine plots may fail, 
Tho' harlots paint their talk as well as face 
With colours ofthe heart that are not theirs 
I will not let her know : nine tithes of times 
Face-flatterers and backbiters are the same. 
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a 

(crime' 
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, 
Wanting the mental range ; or low desire 
Not to feel lowest makes them level all ; 
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the 

(plain. 
To leave an equal baseness ; and in this 
And harlots like the crowd, that if they find 
Some stain or blemish in a name of note, 
Not grieving that their greatest are so small, 
Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 
And judge all nature from her feet of clay, 
Without the will to lift their eyes, and s*ee 
Her godlike head crowd'd with spiritual fire, 
And touching otlier worlds, I am, weary of 

(her." 

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers 

(part, 
Half-suffocated in the hoary fell 
And many- winter'd fleece of throat and chin. 
But Vivien,gathering somewhat of his mood, 
x\.nd hearing ,/harlot'' mutter'd twice or 

(thrice. 
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood 
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight. 
How from the rosy lips of life and love, 
Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death! 
White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger 

(puff'd 
Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clench'd 
^^'ent faltering sideways downward to her 

(belt. 
And feeling, had she found a dagger there 
(For in a wink the false love turns to hate) 
She would have stabb'd him ; hut she found 

(it not. 
His eye was calm, and suddenly she took 
To bitter weeping like a beaten child, 
Along, long weeping, not consolable. 
Then her false voice made way broken with 

(sobs, 

cratller, than was ever told in tale. 



3/ERLm JiWD VIVIEN. 



291 



Or suug: in song ! vainly lavisli'd love ! 

cniel, there was nothiug wild or strange. 
Or seeming shameful/or what shame in love, 
So love be true, and not as yours is — nothing 
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust 
Who call'd her what he call'd her — all her 

(crime, 
All — all — the wish to prove him wholly 
(hers." 

She mused a little, and then clapt her hands 
Together with a wailing shriek, and said : 
„Stabb'd through the heart's affections to 

(the heart ! 
Seethed like the kid in its own mother's milk! 
' Kill'd Avith a word worse than a life of blows! 

1 thought that he was gentle, being great : 

God, that I had loved a smaller man ! 

1 should have found in him a greater heart. 
0, 1, that flattering my true passion, saw 
Tlie knights, the court, the king, dark in 

(your light, 
AVho loved to make men darker than they are, 
Because of that high pleasure which I had 
To seat you sole upon my pedestal 
Of worship — I am answer'd, and henceforth 
The course of life that seem'd so flowery to 

(me 
AYith you for guide and master, only you. 
Becomes the sea-cliif pathway broken short, 
And ending in a ruin — nothing left. 
But into some low cave to crawl, and there, 
If the wolf spare me, weep my life away, 
Kill'd with inutterable unkindliness." 

She pa>ised, she turn'd away, she hung her 

(head, 
Die snake of gold slid from her hair, the 

(braid 
_ Slipt and uncoil'd itself, she wept afresh. 
And the dark wood grew darker toward the 

(storm 
In silence, while his anger slowly died 
Within him, till he let his wisdom go 
For ease of heart, and half believed her true: 
Call'd her to shelter in the hollow oak, 
,,Come from the storm" and having no reply. 
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face 
Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame ; 
Then thrice essay'd, by tenuerest-touching 

(terms 
To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, in vain. 
At last she let herself be conquer'd by him, 
And as the cageling newly flown returns, 
The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing 



Came to her old perch bHck,and settled there. 
There while she sat, half-falling from his 

(knees, 
Half-nestled at his heart, and since he saw, 
The slow tear creep from her closed eyelid 

(yet, 

About her, more in kindness than in love, 
The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm. 
But she dislink'd herself at once and rose, 
Her arms upon her breast across; and stood 
A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wrong'd, 
Upright and flush'd before him: then she 
(said : 

„There must be now no passages of love 
Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore, 
Since, if I be what I am grossly call'd, 
What should be granted which your own 

(gross heart 
Would reckon worth the taking V I will go. 
In truth, but one thing now — better have 

(died 
Thrice than have ask'd it once -— could make 

(me stay — 
That proof of trust — so often asked in vain! 
How justly, after that vile term of yours, 
I find with grief! I might believe you then, 
Who knows? once more. 0, what was once 

(to me 
Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown 
The vast necessity of heart and life. 
I'are well ; think kindly of me, for I fear 
My fate or fault, omitting gayer youth 
For one so old, must be to love you still. 
But ere I leave you let me swear once more 
That if I schemed against your peace in this, 
May yon just heaven, that darkens o'er me, 

(send 
One flash, that, missing all thing else, may 

(make 
My scheming brain a cinder, if I lie." 

Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven 

(a bolt 
(For now the storm was close above them) 

(struck. 
Furrowing a gaint oak, and javelining 
With darted spikes and splinters of the wood 
The dark earth round. He raised his eyes 

(and saw 
The tree that shone white-listed thro' the 

(gloom. 
But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her 

(oath. 
And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, 



292 



IDYLLS OF THE KIAG. 



xind deafeu'd with the stHinuieriiig cracks 

(and claps 
Tliat follow'd, flying back and crying out, 
„0 Merlin, tho' you do not love me, save, 
Yet save me I" clung to him and hugg'd him 

(close; 
And call'd him dear protector in her fright, 
ISTor yet forgot her practice in her fright, 
B ut Avrought upon his mood and hugg'd him 

(close 
Tlie pale blood of the wizard at her touch 
Took gayer colours, like an opal warm'd. 
She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales : 
She sliook from fear, and for her fault she 

(wept 
Of petulancy ; she call'd liini lord and liege, 
Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, 
Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love 
Of her whole life; and ever overhead 
Bellow'd the tempest, and the rotten branch. 
Snapt in the rushing of the river rain 
xibove them: and in change of glare and 

(gloom 
Her eyes andneckglittering wentand came; 
Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent, 
Moaning and calling out of other lands. 
Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more 
To peace; and what should not have been 

(had been, 
Tor Merlin, overtalk'd and overtvorn, 
Had yielded, told her all the charm, and 

(slept. 

Then, in one moment, she put forth the 

(charm 
Of woven paces and of waving hand, 
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, 
And lost to life and use and name and fame. 

Then crying „1 haveraade his glory mine," 
And shrieking out „0 fool! "the harlot leapt 
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed 
Behind her, and the forest echo'd ,/fool." 



LATsTELOT AND ELAIKE. 
Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, 
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 
High in her chamber up a tower to the east 
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; 
Which first she placed where morning's 

(earliest ray 
Might strike' it, and awake her with the 

(gleam ; 
Then fearing rust or soilure fashion'd for it 
A case of silk, and braided thereupon 



All the devices blazou'd on the shield 
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, 
A border fantasy of branch and flower, 
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. 
iS^or rested thus content, but day by day 
Leaving her household and *go6d fatliei 

(climb'd 
That eastern tower, and entering barr'd hei 

(door, 
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, 
iS^ow guess'd a hidden meaning in his arms, 
IS'ow made a pretty history to herself 
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it, 
And every scratch a lance had made upon it, 
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is 

(fresh ; 
That ten years back; this dealt him at 

(Caerlyle ; 
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot : 
And ah God's mercy what a stroke was 

(there ! I 

And here a thrust that might have kill'd, j 

(but God I 

Broke the strong lance, and roird his i 

(enemy down, I 

And saved him : so she lived in fantasy. 

How came the lily maid by that good 

(shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev*n his 

(name ? 
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt 
Eor the great diamond in the diamond 

(jousts, 
Which Arthur had ordain 'd, and by that 

(name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the 

(prize. 

Eor Arthur long before they cro wn'd him 

(king. 
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, 
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black 

(tarn. 
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave ^ 
Like its own mists to all themountaiu side: 
Eor here two brothers, one a king, had met 
And fought together; but their names were 

(lost. 
And each had slain his brother at a blow. 
And down they fell and made the gkn 

(abhorr'd : 
And there they lay till all their bones were 

(bleach'd, 
And lichen'd into colour with the^crags : 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



And he, that once was king, had on a crown 
Of diaraonds, one in front, and four aside. 
And Arthur came, and labouring up the 

(pass 
All in a misty moonshine, unawares 
I :Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and 

(the skull 
: Brake from the nape, and from the skull 
: - (the crown 

: Roll'd into light, and turning on its rims 
' Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn: 
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, 

(and caught , 
And set it on his head, and in his heart 
. Heard murmurs, „lo, thou likewise shalt be 
(king." . 

Thereafter, when a king, he had the gems 
Pluck'd from the crown, and show'd them 

(to his knights. 
Saying „these jewels, whereupon I chanced 
Divinely, are the kingdom's not the king's — 
For public use: henceforward let there be, 
Once every year, a joust for one of these: 
For so by nine years' proof we needs must 

(learn 
i Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall 

I (grow 

I ! In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 
The Heathen, who, some say, shall rule the 

(land 
.Hereafter, which God hinder." Thus he 

(spoke : 
- And eight years past, eight jousts had been, 

(and still 
IHad Lancelot won the diamond of the 

(year, 
' With purpose to present them to the Queen, 
When all were won; but meaning all at 

(once 
, To snare her royal fancy with a boon 
\\ Worth half her realm, had never spoken 

II (word. 
i; 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 
Hard on the river nigh the place which now 
Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere 
„Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot 

(move 
To these fair jousts? ,i Yea, lord," she said, 

(„ye know it." 



„Then will ye miss,".he answer'd, „the great 

(deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight ye love to look on." And the Queen 
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 
On Lancelot, where he stood beside the 

(King. 
He thinking that he read her meaning there, 
„Stay with me, I am sick; my love is more 
Than many diamonds," yielded, and a heart, 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen 
(However much he yearn'd to make com- 

(plete 
The tale of diamonds for his destined boon) 
Urged him to speak against the truth, and 

(say, 
„Sir king, mine ancient wound is hardly 

(whole. 
And lets me from the saddle;" and the King 
Glanced first at him, then her, and went 

(his way. 
No sooner gone than suddenly she began. 

„To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much 

(to blame. 
Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the 

(knights 
Are half of thtim our enemies, and the crowd 
Will murmur, lo the shameless ones, who 

(take 
Their pastime now the trustful king is 

(gone!" 
Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain : 
„ Are ye so wise ? ye were not once so wise. 
My Queen, that summer, when ye loved 

(me first. 
Then of the crowd ye took no more account 
Tlian of the myriad cricket of the mead. 
When its own voice clings to each blade of 

(grass. 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights, 
Them surely can I silence with all ease. 
But now my loyal worship is allow'd 
Of all men : many a bard, without offence, 
Hass link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, 
The pearl of beauty: and our knights at 

(feast 
Have pledged us in this union, while the 

(king 
Would listen smiling. How then? is ther 

(more? 
Has Arthur spoken aught ? or would your- 

(self, 



294 



IDYLLS OF THE RING. 



lYow weary of my service and devoir, 
Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?" 

She broke into a little scornful laugh. 
//Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless 

(King, 
That passionate perfection, my good lord — 
But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? 
He never spake word of reproach to me, 
He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 
He cares not for me : only here to-day 
There gleam'd a vague suspicion in his 

(eyes : 
Some meddling rogue has tamper'd with 

(him — else 
Rapt in this fancy of liis Table Round, 
And swearing men to vows impossible. 
To make them like himself: but, friend, to 

(me 
He is all fault who hath no fault at all ; 
Tor who loves me must have a touch of 

(earth ; 
The low sun makes the colour: I am yours, 
IS^ot x\rthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. 
And therefore hear my words: go to the 

(j ousts: 
The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our 

(dream 
When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they 

(sting." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of 

(knights. 
„And with what face, after my pretext 

(made, 
Shall I appear, Queen, at Camelot, I 
Before a king who honours his own word, 
As if it were his God's?" 

„Yea," said the Queen, 
„A moral child without the craft to rule, 
Else had he not lost me : but listen to me, 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a 

(touch 
But knowing you are Lancelot; your great 

(name. 
This conquers: hide it therefore; go un- 

(known: 
Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true 

(king 
W ill then allow your pretext, my knight. 
As all for glory ; for to speak him true, 
Ye know right well, how meek so'er he seem. 
No keener hunter after glory breathes. 



He loves it in his kiiights more than hin 

(self: 
They prove to him his work : win and re 

(turn." 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse 
AVroth at himself: not willing to be known 
He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, 
Chose the green path that show'd the rarei 

(foot. 
And there among the solitary downs, 
Full often lost in fancy, lost his way ; 
Till as he traced a faintly-shadow'd track, 
That all in loops and links among the dales 
Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 
Fired from the west, far on a hill, tlie 

(towers. 
Thither he made and wound the gateway 

(horn. 
Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkled 

(man. 
Who let him into lodging and disarm'd. 
And Lancelot marvell'd at the wordless 

(man; 
And issuing found the Lord of Astolat 
With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir 

(Lavaine, 
Moving to meet him in the castle court; 
And close behind them stept the lily maid. 
Elaine, his daughter : mother of the house 
There was not: some light jest among them 

(rose 
With laughter dying down as the great 

(knight 
Approach'd them: then the Lord of Astolat. 
//Whence comest thou, my guest, and by 

(what name 
Livest between the lips? for by thy state 
And presence I might guess thee chief of 

(those. 
After the king, who eat in Arthur's halls. 
Him have I seen : the res t, his Table Round, 
Known as they are,to me they are unknown." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of 

(knights 
„Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and 

(known, 
What I by mere mischance have brought, 

(my shield. 
But since I go to joust as one unknown 
At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not. 
Hereafter you shall know me — and the 

(shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have, 



LANCELOT AND MAINE. 



295 



Blank, or at least with some device not 
(mine." 

Then said the Lord of Astolat, -/Here is 

(Torre's: 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son, Sir Torre. 
And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His ye can have." Then added plain Sir 

(Torre, 
„ Yea since I cannot use it, ye may have it." 
Here laugh'd the father saying „Fie Sir 

(Churl, 
Is that an answer for a noble knight? 
Allow him : but Lavaine, my younger here. 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride, 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an 

(hour 
And set it in this damsel's golden hair, 
To make her thrice as wilful as before." 

,/Nay, father, nay good father, shame me 

(not*^ 
Before this noble knight" saidyoungLavaine 
„For nothing. Surely I but play'd on Torre : 
He seem'd so sullen, vext he could not go : 
A jest, no more: for, knight, the maiden 

(dream. 
That some one put this diamond in her hand, 
And that it was too slippery to be held, 
j And slipt and fell into some pool or stream, 
The castle-well, belike; and then I said 
That i/I went and i/I fought and won it 
(But all was jest andjoke among ourselves) 
then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 
But father %\\t me leave, an if he will. 
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight : 
Win shall I not, but do my best to win: 
Young as I am, yet would I do my best." 

I „So ye will grace me," answer'd Lancelot, 
Smiling a moment, „with your fellowship 
O'er these waste downs whereon I lost my- 

(self, 
Then were I glad of you as guide and friend; 
x\nd you shall win this diamond — as I hear. 
It is a fair large diamond, — if ye may, 
And yield it to this maiden, if ye will. 
,/ A fair large diamond," added plain SirTorre 
„Such be for Queens and not for simple 

(maids. 
Then she,who held her eyes upon the ground , 
Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 
riiish'd slightly at the slight disparagement 
Before the stranger knight, who, looking at 



Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return'd, 
./If what is fair be but for what is fair, 
And only Queens are to be counted so, 
Bash were my judgment then, who deem 

(this maid 
Might wear as fair a jewel as in on earth, 
Ivot violating the bond of like to like." 

He spoke and ceased: the lily maid Elaine, 
Won by the mellow voice before she look'd, 
Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. 
The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 
In battle with the love he bare his lord, 
Had marr'd his face, and mark'd it ere his 

(time. 
Another sinning on such heights with one, 
The flower of all the west and all the world, 
Had been the sleeker for it: but in him 
His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 
And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
For agony, who was yet a living soul. 
Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest 

(man, 
That ever among ladies ate in Hall, 
And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 
However marr'd, of more than twice her 

(years, 
Seam'd with an ancient swordcut on the 

(cheek. 
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her 

(eyes 
And loved him, with that love which was 

(her doom. 

Then the great knight, the darling of the 

(court, 
Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stent with all grace, and not with half dis- 

(dain 
Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, 
But kindly man moving among his kind : 
Whom they with meats and vintage of their 

(best 
And talk and minstrel melody entertain'd. 
And much they ask'd of court and Table 

(Bound, 
And ever well and readily answer'd he : 
But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guine- 

(vere, 
Suddenly speaking of the wordless man, 
Heard from the Baron that, ten years before, 
The heathen caught and reft him of his 

(tongue. 
„He learnt and waru'd me of their fierce 

(design 



296 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Against my house, and him they caught and 

(maim'd 
But I my sons and little daughter fled 
From bonds or death, and dwelt among the 



By the great river in a boatman's hut. 
Pull days were those, till our good Arthur 

(broke 
The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill/' 

.,0 there, great Lord, doubtless," Lavaine 

(said, rapt 
By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, „you have 

(fought. 
tell us — for we live apart — you know 
Of Arthur's glorious wars." And Lancelot 

(spoke 
And answer'd him at full, as having been 
With Arthur in the fight which all day long 
Rang by the white mouth of the violent 

(Glem ; 
And in the four wild battles by the shore 
Of Duglas ; that on Bassa ; then the war 
That thunder'd in and out tlie gloomy skirts 
Of Celidon the forest ; and again 
By castle Gurnion where the glorious King 
Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 
Carved of one emerald, center'd in a sun 
Of silver rays, that lighten'd as he breathed; 
And at Caerleon had he help'd his lord, 
When the strongneighingsof the wild white 

(Horse 
Set every gilded parapet shuddering; 
And up in Agned Cathregoniou too. 
And down the waste sand-shores of Trath 

(Treroit, 
Where many a heathen fell ; //and on the 

(mount 
Of Badon I myself beheld the King 
Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 
And all his legions crying Christ and him. 
And break them ; and I saw liim, after, stand 
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 
Red as the rising sun with heathen blood, 
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried 
'They are broken, they are broken, for the 

(King, 
However mild he seems at home, nor cares 
For triumph in our mimic wars, the j ousts — 
For if his own knight cast him down, he 

(laughs 
Saying, his knights are better men than he — 
Yet in tins heathen war the fire of God 



Fills him : I never saw his like: there lives 
No greater leader." 

While he utter'd this. 
Low to her own heart said the lily maid 
„Save your heart self, fair lord;" and wliei 

(befell 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry - 
Being mirthful he but in a stately kind - 
She still took note that when the living sniil 
Died from his lips, across him came a clou( 
Of melancholy severe, from which again, 
Whenever in her hovering to and fro 
The lily maid had striven to makehim checi , 
There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of mannersand of nature: andshethoughi 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her 
And all night long his face before her lived 
As when a painter, poring on a face. 
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 
And fullest ; so the face before her lived, 
Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, ful 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep 
Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in th( 

(thought 
She needs must bid farewell to. sweet La 

(vaine. 
First as in fear, step after step, she stole 
Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating: 
Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in th» 

(court, 
„This shield, my friend, where is it?" anc 

(Lavaine 
\ Past inward , as she came from out the towe 
There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'c 

(and smooth'd 
The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 
Half-envious of the flattering hand, sh( 

(drew 
Nearer and stood. He look'd, and more 

(amazed 
Than if seven men had set upon him, saw 
The maiden standing in the dewy light, 
He had not dream'd she was so beautiful. 
Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, 
For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 
Rapt on his face as if it were a God's. 
Suddenly flash'd on her a wild desire. 
That he should wear her favour at the tilt. 
She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 
„Fair lord, whose name I know not — nohlf 

(it is. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



297 



1 well believe, the noblest — will you wear 
My favour at this tourney r" „ Nay, "said he, 
,,1'air lady, since I never yet have worn 
Favour of any lady in the lists. 
Such is my wont, as those, who know me, 

(know." 
,/Yea, so," she answer'd; „then in wearing 

(mine 
Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord. 
That those who know should know you." 

(And he turn'd 
Her counsel up and down within his mind, 
j'l And found it true, and answer'd „true, my 

(child. 
Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 
'What is it?" and she told him ,;a red sleeve. 
Broider'd with pearls," and brought it: 

(then he bound 
Her token on his helmet, with a smile 
Saying, „I never yet have done so much 
For any maiden living," and the blood 
Sprang to her face and lili'd her with de- 

(light : 
But left her all the paler, when Lavaine 
Eeturning brought the yet-unblazon'd 

(shield. 
His brother's ; which he gave to Lancelot, 
Who parted with his own to fair Elaine; 
,;Do me this grace, my child, to have my 

(shield 
In keeping till I come." „A grace to me," 
She answer'd, „twice to-day. I am your 

(Squire." 
WhereatLavaine said, laughing, „Lily maid. 
For fear our people call you lily maid 
In earnest, let me bring your colour back ; 
Once, twice, and thrice : now get you hence 

(to bed: 
So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his own 

(hand, 
And thus they moved away: she stay'd a 

(minute, 
Then made a sudden step to the gate, and 

there — 
Her bright hair blown about the serious 

(face 
Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss — 
Paused in the gateway, standing by the 

(shield 
In silence, while she watch'd their arms 

(far-oif 
Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 
Then to her tower she climb'd, and took 

(the shield. 



There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the new companions past 

(away 
Far o'er the long backs of the bushless 

(downs. 
To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a 

(knight 
Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 
L hermit, who had pray'd, labour'd and 

(pray'd 
And ever labouring had scoop'd himself 
In the white rock a chapel and a hall 
On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, 
And cells and chambers: all were fair and 

(dry; 
The green light from the meadows under- 

(neath 
Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; 
And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
And poplars made a noise of falling showers. 
And thither wending there that night they 

(bode. 

But when the next day broke from under- 

(ground. 
And shot red fire and shadows thro' the 

(cave. 
They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode 

(away: 
Then Lancelot saying, „hear, but hold my 

(name 
Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the 

(Lake," 
Abash'd Lavaine, whose instant reverence. 
Dearer to true young hearts than their own 

(praise. 
But left him leave to stammer, „is it in- 

(deed ?" 
And after muttering „the great Lancelot" 
At last he got his breath and answer'd 

(//One, 
One have I seen — that other, our liege 

(lord. 
The dread Pendragon, Britain's king of 

(kings. 
Of whom the people talk mysteriously, 
He will be there — then were I stricken 

(blind 
That minute, I might say that I had seen." 

So spake Lavaine, and when they reach'd 

(the lists 
By Camelot in the meadow, let his eyes 
Kun thro' the peopled gallery which half 

(round 



398 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Lay like a rainbow fall'ii upon the grass, 
Until tliey found the clear-faced King, who 

(sat 
Robed in red samite, easily to be known, 
Since to his crown the golden dragon clung. 
And down his robe the dragon writhed in 

(gold, 
And from the carven-work behind him crept 
Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 
Arms for his chair, while all the rest of 

(them 
Thro' knots and loops and folds innunier- 

(able 
Fled ever thro' the woodwork; till they 

(found 
The new design wherein they lost them- 



Yet with all ease, so tender was the work : 
And, in the costly canopy o'er him set, 
Blazed the last diamond of the nameless 

(king. 
Then Lancelot answer'd young Lavaine and 

(said, 
„Me you call great : mine is the firmer seat, 
The truer lance : but there is many a youth 
Isow crescent, who will come to all I am 
And overcome it ; and in me there dwells 
[No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well 1 am not great : 
There is the man," And Lavaine gaped 

(upon him 
As on a thing miraculous, and anon 
The trumpets blew; and then did either 

(side, 
They that assail'd, and they that held the 

(lists, 
Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly 

(move, 
Meet in the midst, and there so furiously 
Shock, that a man far-off might well per- 

(ceive. 
If any man that day were left afield, 
The hard earth shake, and a low thunder 

(of arms. 
And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 
"Which were the weaker; then he hurl'd 

(into it. 
Against the stronger : little need to speak 
Of Lancelot in his glory : King, duke, earl. 
Count, baron — whom lie smote, he over- 

(threw. 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and 
rkin, 



Banged with the Table Bound that helc 

(the lists. 
Strong men, and wrathful that a straugei 

(knight 
Should do and almost overdo the -ileeds 
Of Lancelot; and one said to the other „Lo 
What is he ? I do not mean the force alone 
The grace and versatility of the man — 
Is it not Lancelot?" „ When has Lancelot 

(worn 
Favour of any lady in the lists? 
Not such his wont, as we, that know him 

(know." 
,/How then? who then?" a fury seizedon 

(them, 
A fiery family passion for the name 
Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 
They couch'd tlieir spears and prick'd their 

(steeds and thus. 
Their plumes driv'u backward by the wind 

(they made 
In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North-sea, 
Green-glimmering toward the summit, 

(hears, with all 
Its stormy crests that smoke against the 

(skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, 
And him that helms it, so they overbore 
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear 
Down-glancing, lamed the charger, and a 

(spear 
Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the 

(head 
Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt, and 

(remain'd. 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worship- 

(fully; 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, 
And brought his horse to Lancelot where he 

(lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got, 
But thought to do while he might yet en- 

(dure. 
And being lustily holpen by the rest, 
His party, — tho' it seemed half-miracle 
To those he fought with — drave his kith 

(and kin. 
And all the Table Bound that held the lists, 
Back to the barrier ; then the heralds blew 
Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the 

(sleeve 
Of scarlet, and the pearls; and all the knights, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



299 



lis party, cried ^Advance, and tfike your 

(prize 
Che diamond;'' but he ansvver'd, //diamond 

(me 
S^o diamonds! for God's love, a little air! 
Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 
Hence will 1 and I cliarge you, follow me 

(not." 

He spoke, and vanish'd suddenly, from 

ft he held 
With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. 
Cliere from his charger down he slid, and 

(sat, 
jisping to Sir Lavaine, ,draw the lance- 

i iiead:" 
,A.h my sweet lord Sir Lancelot," saidLa- 

(vaine, 
,1 dread me, if I draw it, ye will die." 
But he .,1 die already with it: draw — 
Draw," — and Lavaine drew, and that other 

(gave 
A. marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, 
A.iul half his blood burst forth, and down 

Oie sank 
For the pure pain, and wholly swoon'd away. 
Then came the hermit out and bare him in, 
Iliere stanch'd his wound; and there, in 

(daily doubt 
Whether to live or die, for many a week 
Hid from the wide world's rumour by the 

(grove 
Of poplars with tlieir noise of falling show- 

(ers, 
And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. •. 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the 

(lists, 
His party, knights of utmost North and 

(West, 
Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate 

(isles, 
Came round their great Pendragon, saying 

(to him 
Lo, Sire, our knight thro' whom we won the 

(day 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his 

(prize 
Untaken, crying that his prize is death," 
,, Heaven hinder," said the King ,/that such 

(a one, 
So great a knight as we have seen to-day — 
He seem'd to me another Lancelot — 
Tea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 



He must not pass uucared for. Wherefore 
(rise, 

Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. 
Wounded and wearied needs must he be near. 

1 charge you that you get at once to horse. 
And, knights and kings, there breathes not 

(one of you 
Will deem this prize of ours is rashly giren : 
His prowess was too wondrous. We will do 

(him 
jS"o customary honour : since the knight 
Came not to us, of us to claim the prize, 
Ourselves will send it after. Eise and take 
This diamond, and deliver it, and return, 
And bring us where he Is and how he fares, 
And cease not from your quest, until you 

(find." 

So saying from the carven flower above, 
To which it made a rentless heart, he took, 
And gave, the diamond : then from where he 

(sat 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 
W^ith smiling face and frowning heart, a 

(Prince 
In the mid might and flourish of his May, 
Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fair and 

(strong 
And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint 
And Lamorack, a good knight, but there- 

(withal 
Sir Modred's brother; of a crafty house, 
Nor often loyal to his word, and now 
Wroth that the king's command to sally 

(forth 
In quest of whom he knew not, made him 

(leave 
The banquet, and concourse of knights and 

(kings. 

So all in wrath he got to horse and went ; 
While irthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking „is it Lancelot who has come 
Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain 
Of glory, and has added wound to wound. 
And ridd'n away to die ?" So fear'd the King, 
And, after two days' tarriance there, re- 

(turn'd, 
Then when he saw the Queen, embracing 

(ask'd, 
,/Love, are you yet so sick?" //Nay, Lord," 

(she said. * 
,,And where is Lancelot?" Then the Queen 

(amazed 



300 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



„Was he not with you? won he not your 

(prize?'' 
„Xay, but one like him." „"V\'hy that like 

(was he." 
And when the King demanded how she 

(knew, 
Said „Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us, 
Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 
That men went down before his spear at a 

(touch. 
But knowing he was Lancelot; his great 

(name 
Conquer'd; and therefore would he hide his 

(name 
From all men, ev'n the king, and to this end 
Had made the pretext of a hindering wound, 
That he might joust unknown of all, and 

(learn 
If his old prowess were in aught decay'd : 
Aud added, 'our true Arthur, when he learns 
Will well allow my pretext, as for gain 
Of purer glory.'" 

Then replied the King : 
./Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth. 
To have trusted me as he has trusted you. 
Surely his king and most familiar friend 
Might well have kept his secret. True,indeed, 
Albeit I know my knights fantastical, 
So iine a fear in our large Lancelot 
Must needs iiave moved my laughter : now 

(remains 
But|little cause for laughter : his own kin — 
111 news, my Queen, for all who love him, 

(these ! 
His kith andkin, not knowing, set upon him; 
So that he went sore wounded from the field: 
Yet good news too: for goodly hopes are mine 
That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart- 
He wore, against his wont, upon his lielm 
A sleeve of scarlet, broidered with great 

(pearls. 
Some gentle maiden's gift." 

„Yea, lord," she said, 
„Your hopes are mine," and saying that she 

(choked. 
And sharply tuin'd about to hide her face. 
Past to her chamber, and there flung herself 
Down on tlie-great King's couch, and writh- 

(edupon it, 
And clench'd her fingers till they bit the 

(palm. 
And shriek'd out ^traitor" to the unhearing 

(wall. 



Then flash'd into wild tears, and rose again 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale 

Gawain the while thro* all the regioi 

(round, 

Rode with his diamond,wearied of the quest 
Touch'd at all points, except the popla; 

(grove, 
And came at last, tho'late, to Astolat: 
Whom glittering in enamell'd arms the mai( 
Glanced at, and cried. „What news from Ca 

(melot, lord? 
What of the knight with the red sleeve?' 

G, He won." j 

,/I knew it," she said. ,,But parted from the I 

(jousts 
Hurt in the side," whereat she caught heij 

(breath ; ; 

Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go i 
Thereon she smote her hand : well-nigh she 

(swoon'd: 
And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, 

(came 
The lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince 
Heported who he was, and on what quest 
Sent,that he bore the prize and could not find 
The victor, but had ridden wildly round 
To seek him, and was wearied of the search. 
To whom the lord of Astolat .,Bide witli us, '■ 
And ride no longer wildly, noble Prince ! 
Here was the knight,and here I; e left a shield; 
This will he send or come for : furthermore i 
Our son is with him ; we shall hear anon, 
j^eeds must we hear." To this the courteous 

(Prince 
Accorded with his wonted courtesy. 
Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it. 
And stay'd ; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine: 
Where could be found face daintier? then 

(her shape 
From forehead down to foot perfect — again 
From foot to forehead exquisitely turn'd: 
„Well — ifIbide,loIthiswildflowerformc!" 
And of they met among the garden yews, 
And there he set himself to play upon lier 
With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 
Above her, graces of the court, and songs, 
Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence 
And amorous adulation, till the maid 
Rebell'd against it, saying to him, ,/Prince, 
loyal nephew of our noble King, 
Why ask you not to see the shield^he left. 
Whence you might learn liis name? Wfly 

(sliglit your King, 



LANCELOT JND ELAINE. 



301 



And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 
jS'o surer than our falcon yesterday, 
Who lost the hern we slip't him at, and went 
To all the winds?'' „iS'ay, by mine head," said 

(he, 
„1 lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 
damsel, in the light of your blue eyes : 
But an ye will it let me see the shield." 
And when the shield was brought, and Ga- 

i>'ain saw 
SirLancelot's azure lions,crown'd with gold, 
Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh, and 

(mock'd; 
/Right was the King! our Lancelot! that 

V true man!" 
,;And right was I/' she answer'd merrily, ,/I, 
Who dream'd my knight the greatest knight 

(of all." 
,/And if /dream'd," said Gawain, „that you 

(love 
This greatest knight, your pardon ! lo, you 

(know it! 
Speak therefore: shall I waste myself in 

(vain?" 
Full simple was her answer „ What know I ? 
My brethren have been all my fellowship, 
And I, when often they have'talk'd of love, 
Wish'd it had been my mother, for they 

(talk'd, 
Meseem'd, of what thev knew not ; so mv- 

(self — 
I know not if I know what true love is, 
But if I know, then, if I love not him, 
Methinks there is none other I can love." 
,, Yea, by God's death," said he, „Ye love him 

(well , 
But would not, knew ye what all others 

(know, 
And whom he loves." ,/So be it," cried 

(Elaine, 
And lifted her fair face and moved away : 
But he pursued her calling „Stay a little I 
One golden minute's grace : he wore your 

(sleeve: 
Would he break faith with one I may not 

(name? 
Must our true man change like a leaf at last? 
Is ay — like enough: why then, far be it 

(from me 
To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves! 
And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 
Where your great kuigh't is hidden, let me 

(leave 
My quest with you ; the diamond also : here ! 



For if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; 
And if he love, it will be sweet to have it 
From your own hand; and whether he love 

(or not, 
A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 
A thousand times ! — a thousand times fare- 

(well! 
Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two 
May meet at court hereafter: there, I think, 
So you will learn the courtesies of the court, 
We two shall know each other." 

Then he gave, 
And slightly kiss'd the hand to which he 

(gave, 
The diamond, and all wearied of the quest 
Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went 
A true-love ballad, lightly rode^'away. 

Thence to the court he past; there told 

(the King 
What the King knew ,/Sir Lancelot is the 

(knight." 
And added ,,Sire,my liege, so much I learnt ; 
But fail'd to find him tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid, 
Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and 

(to her, 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 
I gave the diamond : she will render it ; 
For by mine head she knows his hiding- 

(place." 

The seldom-frowning King frown'd, and 

(replied 
I „Too courteous truly! ye shall go no more 
On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings." 

He spake and parted. Wroth but all in 

(awe, 
For twenty strokes of the blood, without a 

(word, 
Linger'd that other, staring after him; 
Then shook his hair, strode off, andbuzz'd 

(abroad 
About the maid of Astolat, and her love. 
All ears were prick'd at once, all tongues 

(were loosed; 
„The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, 
Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat." 
Some read the King's face,some the Queen's, 

(and all 
Had marvel what the maid might be, but 

(most 
Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 



302 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



Came suddenly on the Qneen with tlie sharp 

(news. 
She, that had heard the noise of it before, 
Bnt sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop'd 

(so low^ 
Marr'd her friend's point with pale tran- 

(quillity. 
So ran the tale like fire about the court, 
Fire in dry stubble a nine days' wonder 

(flared : 
Till ev'u knights at banquet tw^ice or thrice 
Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, 
And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid 
Smiled at each other, while the Queen who 

(sat 
With lips severely placid felt the knot 
Climb in her throat, and with her feet un- 

(seen 
Crush'd the wild passion out against the 

(floor 
Beneath the banquet, where the meats be- 

(came 
As wormwood, and she hated all who 

(pledged. 

But far away the maid in Astolat, 
Her guiltless rival, she tliat ever kept 
The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart. 
Crept to her father, while he mused alone, 
Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and 

(said, 
.-,1'ather, you call me wilful, and the fault 
is yours who let me have my will, and now, 
Sweet father, will you let melose my wits:" 
;,Xay,'' said he, ^surely." ./"VMierefore, let 

(rne hence," 
She answer'd, „and find out our dearLa- 

(vaiue.'' 
„Ye will not lose your wits for dear La- 

(vaine : 
Bide," answer'd he: ,,^ve needs must hear 

(anon 
Of him, and of that other.'' /,Ay,'' she said, 
7 And of that other, for I needs must hence 
And find that other, wheresoe'er he be. 
And with mine own hand give his diamond 

(to him, 
Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 
As yon proudPrince who left the quest to me. 
Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 
Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 
D^.ath-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. 
The gentler-born the maiden, the more 

(bound. 



I My father, to be sweet and serviceable 
I To noble knights in sickness, as ye know, 
j When these have worn their toke'ns: let me 
(hence 
I pray you.'' Then her father nodding said, 
/Av, *av, the diamond: wit von well, niv 

(child. 
Right fain were I to learn this knight were 

(whole, 
Being our greatest : vea, and you must give 

(it- 
And sure I think this fruit is hung too high 
For any mouth to gape for save a Queen's — 
IS'ay, I mean nothing : so then, get you gone. 
Being so very wilful you mustgo.'' 

Lightly, her suit allow'd,she slipt away. 
And while she made her ready for her ride,' 
Her father's latest word humm'd in her ear, 
,/Being so very wilful you must go,-'' 
And changed itself and echoed in her heart, 
■/Being so very wilful you must die." 
But she was happy enough and shook it off, 
As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us; 
And in her heart she answer'd it and said, 
./What matter, so I help him back .to lifer" 
Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide 
Bode o'er the long'backs of the bushless 

(downs 
To Camelot, and before the city-gates 
Came on her brother with a hap'py face 
Making a roan horse caper and curvet 
For pleasure all about a field of flowers: 
Whom when she saw, ./Lavaine," she cried, 

(■/Lavaine, 
How fares my lord Sir Lancelot r' He ama- 

(zed, 
., Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! 
How know ye my lord's'name is Lancelot :" 
But when the maid had told him all her tale, 
Then turn'd Sir Torre, and being in liis 

(moods 
Left them, and under the strange-statued 

(gate. 
Where Arthur's wars were render'd mystic 

(ally. 
Past up the still rich ty to his kin, 
His own far blood, whicli dwelt at Camelot; 
And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove 
Led to the caves : there first she saw tlie 

(casque 
Of Lancelot on the wall: her scarlet sleeve, 
Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls 

(away. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



303 



Sti-eara'd from it stilly and in her heart she 
(laugh'd, ^ , . , 1 

Because he had not loosed it from his helm, 

But meant once more perchance to tourney 
(in it : , . •, . 1 1 

And when they gain'd the cell m which he 

liis battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 
Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream 
Of dragging down his enemy made them 

(move. 
Then she that saw him lying unsleek, un- 

(shorn, 
Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 
Uttered a little tender dolorous cry. 
The sound not wonted in a place so still 
Woke the sick knight, and while he roll d 

(his eyes , . i ^ i • 

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, 

,,Your prize the diamond sent you by the 

(King:" 
His eyes glisten'd: she fancied ,/is it for 

And when the maid had told him all the 

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the 

Assign'd to her not worthy of it, she knelt 
Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 
And laid the diamond in his open hand 
Her face was near, and as we kiss the chiia 
That does the task assign'd, he kiss d her 

(face. , ^ 

At once she slipt like water to the floor. 
„ Alas," he said, „your ride has wearied you. 
Uest must you have." „No rest for me," 

(she said ; - ^ „ 

,;Nay for near you, fair lord, I am at rest." 
What might she mean by that? his large 

(black eyes, , ^^ 

Yet larger thro' his leanness, dwelt upon 

Till all her heart*s sad secret blazed itself 
In the heart's colours on her simple face ; 
And Lancelot look'd and was perplextin 

(mind, 
And being weak in body said no more ; 
But did not love the colour; woman's bve. 
Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd 
Sighing, and feign'd sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the 
(fields, 



And past beneath the wildly-sculptured 

(gates 
Far up the dim rich city to her kin ; 
There bode the night : but woke with dawn, 

Down thro' the dim rich city to the fields, 
Thence to the cave : so day by day she past 
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro 
Gliding, and every day she tended him. 
And likewise many a night: and Lancelot 
Would, tho' he call'd his wound a little 

(hurt . , , , - , 

Whereof he should be quickly whole, at 

(times 
Brain -feverous in his heat and agony, seem 
Uncourteous, even he : but the meek maid 
Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 
Meeker than any child by a rough nurse, 
Milder than, any mother to a sick child, 
And never woman yet, since man s hrst fall, 
Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 
Upbore her; till the hermit, skiU'd in all 
The simples and the science of that time. 
Told him that her fine care had saved his 

And the sick man forgot her simple blush 
Would call her friend and sister, sweet 

(Elaine, . ^ , 

Would listen for her coming and regret 
Her parting step, and held her tenderly, 
And loved her with all love except the love 
Of man and woman when they love their best 
Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 
In any knightly fashion for her sake. 
And peradventure had he seen her hrst 
She might have made this and that other 

(world , . 

Another world for the sick man; but now 
The shackles of an old love straiten d him. 
His honour rooted in dishonour stood 
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness 

FulT mfny a holy vow and pure resolve. 
These, as but born of sickness, could not 

For when the blood ran lustier in him again, 
I'ull often the sweet image of one face, 
Making a treacherous quiet in Ins heart, 
Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 
Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 
Beam'd on his fancy, spoke,he answer d not 
Or short and coldly, and she knew right we 1 1 



S04 



AVliut the rough sickuess meaut; but what 

(this meant 
She kuew not, and the sorrow dimm'd her 

(sight, 
And drave her ere her time across the fields 
lar into the rich city, where alone 
Jhe murmur'd „vain, in vain : it cannot be 
He will not love me : how then ? musti die " 
Ihcn as a little helpless innocent bird: 
That has but one plain passage of few notes, 
Uill sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 
1 or all an April morning, till the ear 
AUaries to hear it, so the simple maid 
U ent half the night repeating, „must I die^" 
And now to right she turn'd, and now to left, 
And found no ease in turning or in rest- 
Ana „him or death '> she mutter'd, „death or 

(him," 
Again and like a burthen, „him or death/' 

fwhoi?^'' Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was 
To Astolat returning rode the three 
?n Tw wJ? ^y.'^T' arrayinghersweetself 

(best ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^'^ she look'd her 

ShecamebeforeSirLancelot,forshethought 
T J ^^i?^'ed, these are my festal robes 
It not, the victim's flowers before he fall " 
And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid ' 
itiat she should ask some goodly gift of him 

heart ^^^^ dear to your true 

My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I 
In mine own land, and what I will I can." 
Then ike a^ghost she lifted up her face. 
But like a ghost without the power to speak 
And Lancelot saw that she witheld her wish 
And bode among them yet a little space ' 
li 1 he should learn it; and one morn it 

(chanced 
He found her in among the garden yews. 
Ana said, ,,Delay no longer, speak your wish, 
Seeing I must go to-day: " then out she brake- 
,/boing ." and we shall never see you more ' 
And 1 must die for want of one bold word '' 
,/bpeak: that I live to hear," he said, „is 

(yours." ' " 

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke • 
„1 have gone mad. I Jove you : let me die " 
,/ Ah sister," answer'd Lancelot, ,,what is 

(vthisc" 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



And innocently extending lier white arms 
viour love," she said, „your love— to be 

(your wife." 
And Lancelot answer'd, „Had I chos'n to 

(wed, 
I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine- 
But now there never will be wife of mine " 
^Iso, no," she cried, ,,i care not to be wife 
But to be with you still, to see your face' 
To serve you, and to follow you thro' the 

(world." 
And Lancelot answer'd, „Tsay, the world 
(the world, ' 

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 
io interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 
To blare its own interpretation— nay, 
Full ill then should I quit your brotlier's 

(love. 
And your good father's kindness." And she 

(said 
„Not to be with you, not to see your face- 
Alas for me then, my good days are done." 
,,IVay, noble maid," he answer'd, ,,ten times 

(nay! 
This is not love: but love's first flash in 

(youth. 
Most common: yea I know it of mine own 

(self: 
And you yo urself will smile at your own self 
Hereafter, when you yield your flower of 

(life 
To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age: 
And then will 1, for true you are and sweet 
Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, 
More specially should your good knight be 

(poor. 
Endow you with broad land and territory 
Even to the half my realm beyond the seas, 
So that would make youhappy,furthermore, 
Ev'n to the death, as tho' ye were mv blood, 
In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 
Tills will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, 
And more than this I cannot." 

While he spoke 
She neither blush'd nor shook, but deathlv- 

(pale ^ 

Stood grasping what was nearest, then 

(replied; 
,,0f all this will I notJiing;" and so fell. 
And thus they bore her swooning to her 

(tower. 

Then spake, to whom thro* those black 

(walls of yew 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



305 



Tlieir talk had pierced, her father. ,,Av, a 

(flash, 
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 
Too courteous are you, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion." 

Lancelot said, 
„That were against me : what I can I will;" 
And there that day remained, and toward 

(even 
Sent for his shield ; full meekly rose the 

(maid, 
Stript off the case, and gave the naked 

(shield; 
Then, when she heard his horse upon the 

(stones, 
Unclasping flung the casement back, and 

(look'd 
Dow a on his helm, from which her sleevfe 

(had gone. 
And Lancelot knew the little clinking 

(sound; 
And she by tact of love v/as well aware 
That Lancelot knew that she was looking 

(at him. 
And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his 

(hand, 
Nor bad farewell, but sadly rode away. 
This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden sat: 
His very shield was gone; only the case, 
Her own poor work, her empty labour, left 
But still she heard liim, still his picture 

(form'd 
And grew between her and the pictured 

(wall. 
Then came her father, saying in low tones 
„Have comfort," whom she greeted quietly. 
Then came her brethren saying, „Peace to 

(thee 
Sweet sister," whom she answer'd with all 

(calm. 
But when they left her to herself again. 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant 

(field 
Approaching thro' the darkness, call'd; the 

(owl 
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 
Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 
Of evening and the meanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song, 
And call'd her song „TheSong of Love and 

(Death, 



And sang it: sweetly could she make and 
(sing. 

,/Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in 

(vain ; 
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not 1. 

Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death 
(must be : 
Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 

Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 

Sweet love, that seems not made to fade 
(away. 
Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless 
(clay, 

1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

„1 fain would follow love, if that could be 
I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 
Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 

High with the last line scaled her voices 

(and this. 
All in a fiery dawning wild with wind 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, 

(and thought 
With shuddering ,/Hark the Phantom of the 

(house 
That ever shrieks before a death," and call'd 
The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo 1 the bloodred light of 

(dawn 
llared on her face, she Bhrilling ,/Let me 

(die!" 

As when we dwell upon a word we know 
Repeating, till the word we know so wtll 
Becomes a wonder and we know not why, 
So dwelt the father on her face and thought 
„Isthis Elaine r" till back the maiden fell, 
Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, 
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said „S\veet brothers, yester- 

(night 
I seem'd a curious little maid again, 
As happy as when we dwelt among the 

(woods, 
And when ye used to take me witli the flood 
Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only ye would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it : tliere ye fixt 
Tour limit, oft returning with the tide. 
And yet I cried because ye would not pass 
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the king. 



306 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



And yet ye would not; but this nij,dit I 

(dream'd 
Tluit I was all alone upon the Hood, 
And then I said ,7 IVow shall I have ray will:'' 
And there I Avoke, but still the wish re- 

(niain'd. 
So let nie hence that I may pass at last 
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 
Until I find the palace of the king. 
There Avill I enter in among them all. 
And no man there will dare to mock at me; 
But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, 
And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; 
Gawain, who bad a thousandfarewells to me, 
Lancelot, who coldly went nor bad me one: 
And there the King will know me and my 

(love, 
And there the Queen herself will pity me, 
And all the gentle court will welcome me, 
And after my long voyage I shall rest I" 

„Peace," said her father, „0 my child, ye 

(seem 
Light-headed, for what force is yours to go, 
So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye 

(look 
On this proud fellow again,who scorn us all?" 

Then the rough Torre began to heave and 

(move. 
And bluster into stormy sobs and say 
.,1 never loved him : an I meet with him, 
I care not howsoever great he be. 
Then will I strike at him and strike him 

(down. 
Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, 
For this discomfort he hath done the house. " 

To which the gentle sister made reply, 
„rret not yourself, dear brother, nor be 

(wroth, 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault 
Not to love me, than it is mine to love 
Him of all men who seems to me the hig- 

(hest." 

„Highest?'' the Father answcr'd, echoing 

^highest?" 
(He meant to break the passion in her) //Uay, 
Daughter, I know not what you call the 

( highest ; 
But this I know, for all the people know it. 
He loves the Queen, and in an open shame : 
And she returns his love in open shame. 
If this be high, what is it to be low ?" 

Tlieu spake the lily maid of Astolat; 



vSweet father, all too faint and sick am I 
t'or anger: these are slanders : never yet 
Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass. 
My father, howsoe'er I seem to you, 
Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return : 
Yet, seeing ye desire your child to live, 
ThankSjbut ye work against your own desire, 
For if I could believe the things ye say 
I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease, 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, an diet me shrive me clean, and die." 

So when the ghostly man had come and 

(gone. 
She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven. 
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised 
A letter, word for word; and when he ask'd 
,/Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? 
Then will I bear it gladly;" she replied, 
,/For Lancelot and the Queen and all the 

(world, 
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote 
The letter she devised ; which being writ 
xind folded, „0 sweet father, tender and true, 
Deny me not," she said — „ye never yet 
Denied my fancies — this, however strange, 
My latest: lay the letter in my hand 
A little ere I die, and close the hand 
Upon it ; I shall guard it even in death. 
And when the heat is gone from out ray heart, 
Then take the little bed on which I died 
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the 

(Queen's 
For richness, and me also like the Queen 
In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 
To take me to the river, and a barge 
Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 
I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. 
There surely I shall speak for mine own self, 
And none of you can speak for me so well. 
And therefore let our dumb old man alone 
Go with me, he can steer and row, and he 
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors." 
She ceased: herfather promised; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her 

(death 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 
But ten slow mornings past, and on the el 

(venth 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



807 



Her father laid the letter in her hand, 
Ajid closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole in Astolat. 

But when the next sun brake from under- 

(ground, 
Then, those two hretliren slowly with bent 

(brows 
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier 
Past like a'shadow thro' the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the 

(barge, 
Paird all its length in blackest samite, lay. 
There sat the lifelong creature of the house. 
Loyal, the dtimb old servitor, on deck, 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
So those two brethren from the chariot took 
And on the black decks laid her in her bed,. 
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung 
The silken case with braided blazonings, 
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saving to 

(her 
,;Sister, farewell for ever,'' and again 
^Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears. 
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the 

(dead 
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the 

(flood — 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter — all her bright hair streaming 

(down — 
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 
Drawn to her waist, andsheherself in white 
All but her face, audthat clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 

That day Sir Lancelot at thepalace_'craved 
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift. 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and 

(blow, 
With deaths of others, and almost his own.. 
The nine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he 

(saw 
One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 
With such and so unmoved a majesty 
She might have seem'd her statue, but tliat 

(he. 
Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss'd her 

(feet 
For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 
The shadow of a piece of pointed lace. 
In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 



And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 

All in an oriel on the summer side. 
Vine- clad, of Arthur's palace toward the 

(stream, 
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter'd, 

(vQueen, 
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy. 
Take, what I had not won except for you. 
These jewels, and make me happy, making 

(them 
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth. 
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's 
Is tawnier than her cygnet's: these are 

(words; 
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 
In speaking, yet grant my worship of it 
Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in ■ 

(words 
Perchance, we both can pardon; but, my 

(Queen, 
I hear of rumours flying thro' your court. 
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, 
Should have in it an absoluter trust 
To make up that defect ; let rumours be: 
When did not rumoiu's fly? these, as I trust 
That you trust me in your own nobleness, 
I may not well believe that you believe.'- 

While thus he spoke, half turn'd away, 

(the Queen 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 
Leaf after leaf and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was 

(green; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive 

til and 
Eeceived at once and laid aside the gems 
There on a table near her, and replied. 

,,It may be, I am quicker of belief 
Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife, 
This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill. 
It can be broken easier. I for you 
j This many a year have done despite and 
I (wrong 
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 
I did acknowledge nobler. What are these"' 
Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their 

(worth 
Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 
To loyr.l hearts the value of all gifts 
Must'vary as the giver's. Xot for me I 
For herl for your new fancy. Only this 
Grant me, I pray you ; have your joys apart. 



808 



IBYLLS OF tHE KING. 



T doubt not that however changed, you keep 
So much ol" what is graceful : and myself 
Would shun to break those bounds of cour- 

(tesy 
In which as Arthur's queen I move and rule : 
So cannot speak my mind. An end to this ! 
A strange one! yet I take it with Amen. 
So pray you, and my diamonds to her pearls ; 
Deck her with these; tell her she shines me 

(down : 
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 
Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 
Or as much fairer — as a faith once fair 
Was richer than these diamonds — hers not 

(mine — 
Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 
Or hers or mine, mine now to work my 

(will — 
She shall not have them." 

Saying which she seized. 
And, thro' the casement standing wide for 

(heat, 
Flung them, and down they flash 'd, and 

(smote the stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash'd, as it 

(were, 
Diamonds to meet them, and they past 

(away. 
Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half dis- 

(gust 
At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, 
Close underneath his eyes, and right across 
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge 
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat 
Lay smilling, like a star in blackest night. 

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst 

(away 
To weep and wail in secret; and the barge. 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 
There two stood arm'd, and kept the door; 

(to whom. 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier. 
Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes 

(that ask'd 
„What is it ?" but that oarsman's haggard 

(face. 
As hard and still as is the face that men 
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On &ome clifi'-3ide,'appall'd them, and they 

(said, 
„He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she, 
Look how she pleeps — the Fairy Queen, so 



Yea, but how pale ! what are they ? flesh and 

(blood? 
Or come to take the King to fairy land ? 
For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, 
But that the passes into fairy land." 

While thus they babbled of the King, the 

(King 
Can\e girt with knights: then turn'd the 

(tongueless man 
From the half-face to the full eye, and rose 
And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 
So Arthur bad the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 
Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at 

(her. 
And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 
And last the Queen herself and pitied her: 
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this 

(was all. 

j/Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat, 
Come, for you left me taking no farewell. 
Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return, 
And therefore my true love has been my 

(death. 
And therefore to our lady Guinevere, 
And to all other ladies, I make moan. 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul thou too. Sir Lancelot, 
As thou art a knight peerless. 

Thus he read 
And ever in the reading, lords and dames 
Wept, looking often from his face who read 
To hers which lay so silent, and at times. 
So touch'd were they, half-thinking that her 

(lips, 
Who had devised the letter, moved again. 

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all ; 
„My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear. 
Know that for this most gentle maiden's 

(death 
Bight heavy am I ; for good she was and true, 
But loved me with a love beyond all love 
In women, whomsoever I have known. 
Yet to be loved makes not to love again ; 
Isot at my years, however it hold in youth. 
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 
No cause, not willingly, for such a love: 
To this I call my friends in testimony, 
Her brethren, and her father, who himself 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 



309 



Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 
To break her passion, same discourtesy 
Against my nature: what I could, I did. 
I left her and I bad her no farewell. 
Tho*, had I dreamt the damsel would have 

(died, 
I might have put my wits to some rough use, 
And help'd her from herself." 

Then said the Queen 
(Sea was her wrath, yet workingafter storm) 
„Ye might at least have done her so mnch 

(grace, 
Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her 

(death." 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers 

(fell, 
He adding. 

„Queen, she would not be content 
Save that 1 wedded her, which could not be. 
Then might she follow me thro* the world, 

(she ask'd ; • 

It could not be. I told her that her love 
Was but the flash of youth, would darken 

(down 
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 
Toward one more worthy of her — then 

(would I, 
More specially were he, she wedded, poor. 
Estate them with large land and territory 
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas, 
To keep them in all joyance : more than this 
I could not ; this she would not, and she 

(died." 

He pausing, Arthur answer'd, „0 my 

(knight. 
It will be to thy worship, as my knight. 
And mine, as head of all our Table Round, 
To see that she be buried worshipfuUy." 

So toward that shrine which then in all 

(the realm 
Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 
The marshall'd order of their Table Round, 
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown, 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, 
And mass, and rolling music, like a Queen. 
And when the knights had laid her comely 

(head 
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, 
Then Arthur spake among them, ,,Let her 

(tomb 
Ee costly, and her image thereupon. 



And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 
Tor all true hearts be blazon'd on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure!" which was 

(wrought 
Thereafter; but when now the lords and 

(dames 
And people, from the high door streaming, 

(brake 
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 
Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved 

(apart. 
Drew near, and sigh'd in passing „Lancelot, 
Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love." 
He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground, 
„That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, 

(forgiven." 
But Arthur who beheld his cloudy brows 
Approacli'dhim,and with full affection flung 
One arm about his neck, and spake and said. 

^Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I 

(have 
Most love and most affiance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side, 
And many a time have watch'd thee at the 

(tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long-practised 

(knight, 
And let the younger and unskill'd go by 
To w^in his honour and to make his name, 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 
Made to be loved ; but now I would to God, 
For the wild people say wild things of thee, 
Thou could'st have loved this maiden, sha- 

(ped, it seems. 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 
If one may judge the living by the dead. 
Delicately pure and marvellously fair, 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely 

(man 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons 
Born to the glory of thy name and fame. 
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the 

(Lake." 

Then answer'd Lancelot. ^Fair she was, my 

(King, 
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. 
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, 
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart - 
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 
Could bind him, but free love will not be 

(bound. '^ 



SIO 



WriLS OF TEE KING, 



„Free love, so bound, were freest,'' said 

(tlie King. 
„Let love be free; free love is for tlie best : 
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, tho' being, as I think, 
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know." 

And Lancelot answer'd nothing, but he 

(went. 
And at the inrunning of a little brook 
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her moving 

(down, 
Far-oflf, a blot upon the stream, and said 
Low in himself „ Ah simple heart and sweet. 
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy 

(soul? 
Ay, that will I. Farewell too — now at last — 
Farewell, fair lily, 'Jealousy in love?' 
Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous 

(pride? 
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love, 
May not your crescent fear for name and 

(fame 
Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes? 
Why did the King dwell on my name to me? 
Mine own name shames me, seeming a re- 

(proach, 
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 
Stole from his mother — as the story runs — 
She chanted snatches of mysterious song 
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn 
She kiss'd me saying thou art fair, my child, 
As a king's son, and often in her arras 
She l)are me, pacing on the dusky mere. 
Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er 

(it be ! 
For what am I? what profits me my name 
Of greatest knight? I fought for it,andhave it: 
Pleasure to have it, none ; to lose it, pain ; 
Now grown a part of me : but what use in it? 
To make men worse by making my sin 

(known ? 
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great ? 
Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 
Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break 
Thesebondsthatso defame me: not without 
She wills it : would I, if she will'd it ? nay. 
Who knows? but if I would not, then may 

(God, 



I pray hi m, send a sudden Angel down 
To seize me by the hair and bear me far, 
And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, 
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills.' 

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful 

(pain. 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 

THE HOLY GRAIL.' 

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess 

(done 
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 
Whom Arthur andhis knighthood call'd The 

(Pure, 
Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer, 
Praise, fast, and alms ; and leaving for the 

(cowl 
The helmet in an abbey far away 
From Camel ot, there, and not long after 

(died. , 

Afid one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the 

(rest, 
And honour'd him, and wrought into his 

(heart 
A way by love that waken'd love within. 
To answer that which came : and as they 

(sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening 

(half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April »iorn 
That puff' d the swaying branches into 

(smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died, 
The monk Ambrosius question'd Percivale: 

„0 brother, I have seen this yew-tree 

(smoke. 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred 

(years : 
For never have I known the world without, 
Nor ever stray'd beyond the pale: but thee, 
When first thou camest — such a courtesy 
Spake thro' the limbs and in the voice — I 

(knew 
For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall ; 
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins. 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamp'd with the image of the King; and 

(now 
Tell me, what drove thee from tlie Table 

(Round, 
My brother? was it earthly passion crostr' 



THE HOLF GRAIL. 



311 



,,Xay," said the knight; vforuo such pas- 

(siou mine. 
But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail 
Drove me from all vaiug lories,*rivalries, 
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle 

(out 
Among us in the jousts, while women 

(watch 
Who wins, who falls; and waste the spirit- 

(ual strength 
Within US; better offered up to Heaven.'' 

To whom the monk : „The Holy Grail 1 — 

(I trust 
We are green in Heaven's eyes ; but here 

(too much 
We moulder — as to things without I 

(mean — 
Yet one of your own knights, a guest of 

(ours, 
Told us of this in our refectory, 
But spake with such a sadness and so low 
We heard not half of what he said. What 

(is it? 
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes r " 

„Nay, monk! what phantom?'' answer'd 

Percivale. 
./The CUT), the cup itself, from which our 

(Lord ' 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessed land of Aromat — 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah — the good 

(saint, 
Arimathcean Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our 

(Lord. 
And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was heal*d at once, 
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 
Grew to such evil that the lioly cup. 
Was caught away to Heaven^ and disap- 

(pear'd.'' 

To whom the monk : /From our old books 

(I know 
That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 
And there the heathen Prince, Aviragus, 
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; 
And there he built with wattles from the 

(marsh 
A little lonely chui'ch in days of yore, 
Yor so they say, these books of ours, but 

(seem 



Mute of tliis miracle, far as I have read. 
But who tirst saw the holy thing to-day r" 

„A woman," answer'd Percivale, ,,a nun, 
And one no further off in blood from me 
Than sister; and if ever holy maid 
With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
A holy maid; tho' never maiden glow'd, 
But that was in her earlier maidenhood. 
With such a fervent flame of human love. 
Which being rudely blunted, glanced and 

(shot 
Only to holy things; to prayer and praise 
She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, 
Xun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
Sin against Arthur and the Table Bound, 
And the strange sound of an adulterous race. 
Across the iron grating of her cell 
Beat, and she pray'd and fasted all the more. 

,/And he to whom she told her sins, or 

(what 
Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, 
A man well-nigh a hundred winters old, 
Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, 
A legend handed down thro' five or six, 
And each of these a hundred winters old, 
From our Lord's time. And when King Ar- 

(thur made 
HisTable round, and all men's heartsbecame 
Clean for a season, surely he had thought 
That now the Holy Grail would come again; 
But sin broke out.' Ah, Christ, that it would 

(come. 
And heal the world of all their wickedness! 
'0 Father!' asked the maiden, 'might it come 
To me by prayer and fasting?' 'Xay,' said he, 
■'I know'not, for thy heart is pure as snow.' 
And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun 
Shone, and the' wind blew, thro' her, and I 

(thought 
She might have risen and floated when I saw 

(her. 

,,For on a day she sent to speak with me. 
And when she came to speak, behold her eyes 
Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful, 
Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, 
Beautiful in the light of holiness. 
And '0 my brother, Percivale,' she said, 
'Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail : 
For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 
Blown, and I thought. „It is not Arthur's use 
To hunt by moonlight ;'■ and the slender 

(sound 



312 



IDYLLS OF THE KING. 



As from a distance beyond distance grew 
ComiQg upon me — never harp nor horn, 
Js'or aught we blow with breatli, or touch 

(with hand, 
Was like that music as it came ; and then 
Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam, 
And do wn the long beam stole the Holy grail, 
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive, 
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
"With rosy colours leaping on the wall ; 
And then the music faded, and the Grail 
Pass'd, and the beam decay'd, and from the 

(walls 
The rosy quiverings died into the night. 
So now the Holy Thing is here again 
Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray. 
And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, 
That so perchance the vision may be seen 
By thee and those, and all the world be 

(heal'd. 

„Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this 
To all men; and myself fasted and pray'd 
Always, and many among us many a week 
Fasted and pray'd even to the uttermost. 
Expectant of the wonder that would be. 

„And one there was among us, ever moved 
Among us in white armour, Galahad. 
'God make thee good as thou art beautiful,' 
Said Arthur, when he dubb'd him knight; 

(and none. 
In so young youth, was ever made a knight 
Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he 

(heard 
My sister's vision, fill'd me witli amaze; 
His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd 
Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 

„Sister or brother none had he ; but some 
Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said 
Begotten by enchantment — chatterers they. 
Like birds of passage piping up and down, 
That gape for flies — we know not whence 

(they come; 
For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? 

„But she, the wan sweet maiden shore 

(away 
Clean from her forehead all that wealth of 

(hair 
Which made a silken mat work for her feet ; 
And out of this she plaited broad and long 
A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver 

^^thread 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 



A crimson grail within a silver beam; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound 

(it on him 
Saying, 'My knight, my love, ray knight of 

(heaven, 
thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt 
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 
And break thro' all, till one will crown thee 

(king 
Far in the spiritual city -.' and as she spal^e 
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Thio' him, and made him hers, and laid her 

(mind 
On him, and he believed in her belief. 

„Then came a year of miracle: brother, 
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, 
Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away. 
And carven with strange figures ; and' in and 

(out 
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 
Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 
And Merlin call'd it 'The Siege perilous. 
Perilous for good and ill; 'for there,' he said, 
'jSTo man couldsit but he should losehimself:' 
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 
In his own chair, and so was lost ; but he, 
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 
Cried, 'If I lose myself I save myself!" 

„Then on a summer night it came to pass, 
While the great banquet lay along the hall, 
That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's 

(chair. 

„And all at once, as there we sat, we 

(heard 
A cracking and a riving of the roofs. 
And rending, and a blast, and overhead 
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. 
And in the blast there smote along the hall 
A beam of light seven times more clear than 

(day: 
And down the long beam stole the HolyGrail 
All over cover'd with a luminous cloud, 
And none might see who bare it, and it past. 
But every knight beheld his fellow's face 
As in a glory, and all the knights arose. 
And staring each at other like dumb men 
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. 

,,1 sware a vow before them all, that I, 
Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride 
A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it. 
Until I found and saw it, as the nun 



THE SOLI GRAIL. 



31S 



My sister saw it; and Galahad sware the vow, 
And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin 

(sware, 
And Xancelot sware, and many among the 

(knights 
And Gawain sware, and louder than the 

(rest." 

Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking 
(him, 
„"What Said the King? Did Arthur take the 
(vow? 

„Nay, for my lord ," said Percivale, „the 

(king, 
Was not in hall : for early that same day, 
Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold, 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help : for all her shining hair 
Was smear'd with earth, and either milky 

(arm 
Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she 

(wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest : so the king arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild 

(bees 
That made such honey inhis realm. Ho wbeit 
Some little of this marvel he too saw, 
Returning o'er the plain that then began 
To darken under Camelot ; whence the king 
Look*d up, calling aloud, 'Lo there! the roofs 
Of our great hall are rolled in thunder- 

(snioke ! 
Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the 

(bolt.' 
For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours. 
As having there so oft with all his knights 
Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. 

„0 brother, had you known our mighty 

(hall. 
Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago ! 
For all the sacred mount of Camelot, 
And all the dim rich city, roof by roof. 
Tower after tower, spire beyond spire. 
By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing 

(brook. 
Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. 
And four great zones of sculpture, set be- 

(twixt 
With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall: 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, 
And in the second men are slaying beasts, 
And oil the tliiid arc warriors, perfect men, 



And on the fourth are men with growing 

(wings, 
And over all one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown. 
And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern 

(Star. 
And eastward fronts the statue, and the 

(crown 
And both the wings are made of gold, and 

(flame 
At sunrise till the people in far fields. 
Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, 
Behold it, crying, 'We have still a king.* 

„And, brother, had you known our hall 

(within. 
Broader and higher than any in all the lands! 
Where twelve great windows blazon Ar- 

(thur's wars, 
And all the light that falls upon the board 
Streams thro' the twelve great battles of 

(our King. 
Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end. 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and 

(mere, 
Where Arthur finds the brand, Excalibur. 
And also one to the west, and counter to it. 
And blank : and who shall blazon it ? when 

(and how ? — 
there, perchance, when all our wars are 

(done, 
The brand Excalibur will be cast away. 

„Soto this hall full quickly rode theKing, 
In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought. 
Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish, 

(wrapt 
In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. 
And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw 
The golden dragon sparkling over all: 
And many of thos6 who burnt the hold, their 

(arms 
Hack*d, and their foreheads grimed with 

(smoke, and sear'd, 
Follow'd, and in among bright faces, ours. 
Full of the vision, prest; and then the King 
Spake to me, being nearest, 'Percivale,' 
(Because the hall was all in tumult — some 
Vowing, and some protesting), 'what is 

(this?' 

„0 brother, when I told him what had 

(chanced, 
My sister's vision, and the rest, his face 
Darken'd, as I have seen it more than once, 



314 



TDFLLS OF THE KING. 



"When some l)rave deed scem'd to be done in 

(vain, 
Darken ; and 'Woe is me, ray knights,' he 

(cried, 
'Had I been here, yehadnotswonithe vow.' 
Bold vras mine answer, 'Had thyself been 

(here, 
My King, thou wonldsthave sworn.' 'Yea, 

(yea,' said he 
'Art thou so bold and hast not seen the 

(Grail?' 

,/']S'ay, Lord, I heard the sound, I saw the 

(light, 
But since I did not see the Holy Thing, 
I sware a vow to follow it till I saw,* 

,/Then when he asked us, knight by 

(knight, if any 
Had seen it, all their answers were as one : 
'Nay, Lord, and therefore have we sworn our 

(vows.' 

,Lo now,' said Arthur, 'have ye seen a 

(cloud? 
"What go ye into the wilderness to see ?' 

,/Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a 

(voice 
Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, call'd, 
'But I, Sir Artliur, saw the Holy (^rail, 
1 saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry — 
Galahad, and Galahad, follow me.' 

,,'Ah, Galahad, Galahad,' said the King, 

('for such 
As thou art is the vision, not for these 
Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign — 
Holier is none, my Percivale, than she — 
A sign to maim this Order which I made. 
But you, that follow but the leader's bell' 
(Brother, the King was hard upon his 

knights) 
Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, 
And one hath sung and all the dumb will 

(sing. 
Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne 
Five knights at once, and every younger 

(knight, 
Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot, 
Till overborne by one, he learns ~ and ye, 
What are ye? Galahads? — no, nor Perci- 

(vales' 
(For thus it jjleased the King to range me 

(close 
After Sir Galahad); 'nay,' said he, 'but men 
With strength and will to right the wroug'd, 

(of power 



To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, 
Knights that in twelve great battles splash'd 

(and dyed 
The strong White Horse in his own heathen 

(blood — 
But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. 
Go, since your vows are sacred, being made: 
Yet — for ye know the cries of all my realm 
Pass thro' tliis hall — how often, my 

(knights, 
Y^our places being vacant at my side, 
This chance of noble deeds will come and go 
Unchallenged, while you follow wandering 

(fires 
Lost in the quagmire? Many of you, yea 

(most, 
Eeturn no more ; ye think I show myself 
Too dark a prophet : come now, let us meet 
The morrow morn once more in one full field 
Of gracious pastime, that once more the 

(King, 
Before you leave him for this Quest, may 

(count 
The yet-unbroken strength of all his 

(knights, 
Rejoicing in that Order which he made.' 

,/So when the sun broke next from under 

(ground, 
All the great table of our Arthur closed 
And clash'd in such a tourney and so full, 
So many lances broken — never yet 
Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur 

(came. 
And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from the vision, overthrew 
So many knights that all the peopk cried, 
And almost burst the barriers in their heat, 
Shouting 'Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale !' 

„But when the next day brake from un- 

(derground — 
brother, had you known our Camelot, 
Built by old kings, age after age, so old 
The King himself had fears that it would 

(fall. 
So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the 

(roofs 
Totter'd toward each other in the sky, 
Met foreheads all along the street of those 
Who watch'd us pass; and lower, and where 

(the long 
Rich galleries, lady-laden , weigh'd the necks 
Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, 



THE HOLY GRAIL. 



315 



Thicker than drops from thiuuler, showers 

(of flowers 
Fell as we past; and nieu and hoys astride 
On wyvern, lion, dragon, griflin, swan, 
At all the corners, named us each by name, 
Calling 'God speed!' but in the street below 
The knights and ladies wept, and rich and 

(poor 
Wept, and the King himself could hardly 

(speak 
Tor grief, and in the middle street theQueen, 
Who rode by Lancelot, wail'd and shriek'd 

(aloud, 
'This madness has come on us for our sins.' 
And then w^e reach'd the weirdly-sculptured 

(gate. 
Where Arthur's wars wererender'd mystic- 
ally. 
And thence departed every one his way. 

„And I was lifted up in heart, and thought 
Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists, 
How my strong lance had beaten down the 

(knights. 
So many and famous names; and never yet 
Had heaven appear'd so blue, nor earth so 

(green, 
For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 

^Thereafter, the dark warning of ourKing, 
That most of us would follow wandering 

(fires, 
Came like a driving gloom across my mind, 
Then every evil word Iliad spoken once. 
And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
And every evil deed I ever did, 
Awoke and cried, 'This Quest is not for 

(thee.' 
And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 
Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns, 
And I was thirsty even unto death ; 
And I, too, cried, 'This Quest is not for 

(thee.* 

„And on I rode, and when I thought my 

(thirst 
Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a 

(brook, 
With one sharp rapid, where the crisping 

(white 
Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave. 
And took both ear and eye; and o'er the 

(brook 
Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
Fallen, and on the lawns. 'I will rest here, 



1 said, 'I am not worthy of the Quest :' 
But even while 1 drank the brook, and ate 
The goodly apples, all these things at once 
Fell into dust, and was left alone. 
And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. 

,, And then behold a woman at a door 
Spinning; and fair the house whereby she 

(sat. 
And kind the woman's eyes and innocent. 
And all her bearing gracious ; and she rose 
Opening her arms to meet me, as who should 

(say, 
'Rest here,' but when I touched her, lo ! she, 

(too, 
Fell into dust and nothing, and the house 
Became no better than a broken shed, 
And in at a dead babe; and also this 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone, 

„ And on I rode, and greater was my thirst. 
Then flash'd a yellow gleam across the 

(world, 
And where it smote the plowshare in the 

(field, 
The plowman left his plowing, and fell down 
Before it; where it glitter'd on her pail. 
The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down 
Before it, and I knew not why, but thought 
'The sun is rising,' tho' the sun had risen. 
Then was I ware of one that on me moved 
In golden armour with a crown of gold 
About a casque all Jewells ; and his horse 
In golden armour jewell'd everywhere : 
xind on the spJendoiu* came, flashing me 

(blind; 
And seem'd to me the Lord of all the world, 
Being so huge. But when 1 thought he meant 
To crush me, moving on me, lo ! he, too. 
Opened his arms to embrace me as he came, 
And up I went and touch'd him, and he, 

(too, 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone 
And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. 

,/ And I rode on and found a mighty hill. 
And on the top, a city wail'd : the spires 
Prick 'd with incredible pinnacles into 

(heaven. 
And by the gateway stirr'd a crowd ; and 

(these 
Cried to me climbing, 'Welcome, Percivale ! 
Thou mightiest and thou purest among 

(men!' 
And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 
No man, nor any voice. And thence I past 



316 



inras of the king. 



Far tliro* a ruinous city, and I saw 

Tluit man had once dwelt there ; but there I 

(found 
Only one man of an exceeding age 
'Where is that goodly company, said I, 
'That so cried out upon me?' and he had 
Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp'd 
Whence and what art thou ?' and even as he 

(spoke 
Fell into dust, and disappear'd, and I 
Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, 
'Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself 
And touch it, it will crumble into dust.' 

„A.nd thence I dropt into a lowly vale, 
Low as the hill was liigh, and where the 

(vale 
Was lowest, found a chapel and thereby 
A holy liermit in a hermitage, 
To whom I told my phantoms, and he said : 

„'0 son, thou hast not true humility, 
The highest virtue, mother of them all; 
For when the Lord of all things made Him- 

(self 
Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
'Take thou my robe, she said, 'for all is 

(thine,' 
And all her form shone forth with sudden 

(light 
So that the angels were amazed, and she 
FoUow'd him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-hair'd wisdom of the east ; 
Eut her thou hast not known : for what is 

(this 
Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy 

(sins? 
Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself 
As Galahad.' When the hermit made an end, 
In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone 
Before us, and against tlie chapel door 
Laid lance, and enter'd, and we knelt in 

(prayer. 
And there the hermit slaked my burning 

(thirst 
And at the sacring of the mass 1 saw 
The holy elements alone; but he : 
'Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 
The tioly Grail, descend upon the shrine -. 
1 saw tlie fiery face as of a cliild 
That smote itself into the bread, and went ; 
And hither am I come; and never yet 
Hath what thy sister taught me first to see; 
This Holy Thing, fail'd from my side, nor 

(come 



Cover'd,but moving with me night and day. 
Fainter by day, but always in the night 
Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken'd 

(marsh 
Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 
Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 
Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, 
Shattering all evil customs everywhere. 
And past tliro' Pagan realms, and made 

(them mine. 
And clash'd with Pagan hordes, and bore 

(them down. 
And broke thro* all, and in the strength of 

(this 
Come victor. But my time is hard at hand. 
And hence I go; and one will crownmeking 
Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too, 
For thou shalt see the vision when I go.* 

„ While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling 

(on mine. 
Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
One with him, to believe as he believed. 
Then, when the day began to wane, we went. 

,/ There rose a hill that none but man 

(could climb, 
Scarr'd with a hundred wintry watercour- 

(ses — 
Storm at the top, and when we gain'd it, 

(storm 
Bound us and death;, for every moment 

(glanced 
His silver arms and gloom'd : so quick and 

(thick 
The lightnings here and there to left and 

(right 
Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, 

(dead. 
Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death. 
Sprang into fire, and at the base we found 
On either hand, as far as eye could see, 
A great black swamp and of an evil smell 
Part black, part whiten *d with the bones of 

(men. 
Not to be crost, save that some ancient king 
Had built a way, where, liuk'd with many a 

(bridge. 
A thousand piers run into the great Sea. 
And Galahad fied along them bridge by 

(bridge, 
And every ])ridge as quickly as he crost 
Sprang into fire and vauish'd, tho' I yearn'd 
To follow; and thrice above him all the hea- 

(vens 



THE IJOLY GRJIL. 



317 



Opeu'd and blazed with thunder such as 

(seem'd 
Shoutings of all the sons of God : and first 
At once I saw him far on the great sea, 
In silver-shining armour starry-clear; 
And o'er his head the holy vessel hung 
Clothed in white samite or a luminous 

(cloud. 
And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat 
If boat it were — I saw not whence it 

(came. 
And when the heavens open'd and blazed 

(again 
Roaring, I saw him like a silver star — 
And had he set the sail, or had the boat 
Become a living creature clad with wings ? 
And o'er his head the holy vessel hung 
Redder than any rose, a joy to me. 
For now I knew the veil had been with- 

(drawn. 
Then in a moment when they blazed again 
Opening, I saw the least of little stars 
Down on the waste, and straight beyond the 

(star 
I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 
And gateways in a glory like one pearl — 
No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints — 
Strike from the sea ; and from the star there 

(shot 
A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 
Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, 
Which never eyes on earth again shall see. 
Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the 

(deep. 
And how my feet recross'd the tieatliful ridge 
No memory in me lives; but that I touch'd 
The chapel-doors at dawn I know; and 

(thence 
Taking my war-horse from the holy man, 
Glad that no phantom vext me more, re- 

(turn'd 
To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's 

(wars." 

„0 brother," ask'd Ambrosius, — for in 

(sooth 
These ancient books — and they would win 

(thee — teem, 
Only I tind not there this Holy Grail, 
With miracles and marvels like to these. 
Not all unlike , which oftentime I read, 
Who read but on my breviary with ease, 
Till my head 5\vims; and then go forth and 



Down to the little thorpe tliat lies so 

(close, 
And almost plaster'd like a martin's nest 
To these old walls — and mingle with our 

(folk; 
And knowing every honest face of theirs. 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep. 
And every homely secret in their hearts, 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives. 
And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
And mirthful sayings, children of the place. 
That have no meaning half a league away : 
Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
Chafferings and chatteriugs at the market- 

(cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of 

(mine. 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs — 
brother, saving this Sir Galahad 
Came ye on none but phantoms in your 

(quest, 
No man ; no woman ?" 

Then, Sir Percivale : 
„A11 men, to one so bound by such a vow, 
And women were as phantoms, 0, my 

(brother. 
Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 
How far I falter'd from my quest and vow V 
Tor after 1 had lain so many nights 
A bedmale of the snail and eft and snake, 
In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan 
And meagre, and the vision had not come. 
And then I chanced upon a goodly town 
With one great dwelling in the middle of 

(it; 
Thither I made, and there was I disarm'd 
By maidens each as fair as any flower : 
But when they led me into hall, behold 
The Princess of that castle was the one, 
Brother, and that one only, who had ever 
Made my heart leap ; for when I moved of 

(old 
A slender page about her father's hall, 
And she a slender maiden, all my heart 
Went after her with longing: yet we twain 
Had never kiss'd a kiss, or vow'd a vow. 
And now I came upon her once again. 
And 01) c had wedded her, and he was dead, 
And all his laud and wealth and state were 

(hers. 
And while I tarried, every day she set 
A banquet richer than the day before 
By me; for all her longing and her will 



318 



IDFLLS OF THE KIXG. 



AVas toward me as of uld^ till one fair moni, 
I walking to aud fro beside a stream 
That flasli'd across her orchard uuderneatli' 
Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk, 
And calling me the greatest of all knights, 
Embraced mc,and so kiss'd me the first time, 
And gave herself and all her wealth to me, 
Then I reraember'd Arthur's warning word, 
That most of us would follow wandering 

(fires, 
And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, 
The heads of all her people drew to me. 
AVith supplication both of knees and tongue: 
'We haze heard of thee : thou art our great- 

(est knight, 
Our Lady says it, and we well believe : 
Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, 
And thou shalt be us Arthur in our land. 
me, my brother! but one night my vow 
Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled. 
But waiPd and wept, and hated mine own 

(self, 
And ev'n the Holy Quest, and all but her; 
Then after I was join'd with Galahad 
Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth." 

Then said the monk, „Poor men, when 

(yule ia cold, 
Must be content to sit by little fires. 
And this am I, so that ye care for me 
Ever so little ; yea, and blest be Heaven 
That brought thee here to this poor house 

(of ours, 
Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm 
My cold heart with a friend : but the pity 
To find thine own first love once more — to 

(hold, 
Hold her a wealthy bride witliin thine arms, 
Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside, 
Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. 
For we that want the warmth of noublelife, 
We that are plagued with dreams of some- 

(thing sweet 
Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, — 
All, blessed Lord, I speak too earthlywise, 
Seeing I never stray'd beyond the cell, 
But live like an old badger in his earth. 
With earth about him everywhere, despite 
All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, 
None of your knights ?" 

,.. Yea so,'' said Percivale : 
,One night my pathway swerving east, I 

(saw 
The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors 



All in the middle of the rising moon : 

And toward him spurr'd and hail'd him, 

(and he me, 
And each made joy of either; then he ask'd, 
'Where is he? hast thou seen him — Lance- 

(lot?' 'Once,* 
Said good Sir Bors, 'he dash'd across me — 

(mad, 
And maddening what he rode: and when I 

(cried, 
'Bidest thou then so hotly on a quest 
So holy?' Lancelot shouted, 'Stay me not I 
I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace , 
For now there is a lion in the way." 
So vanish'd.' 

„Then Sir Bors had ridden on 
Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, 
Because his former madness, once the talk 
And scandal of our table, hadreturn'd; 
For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him 
That ill to him is ill to them; to Bors 
Beyond the rest: he well had been content 
Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have 

(seen, 
The Holy Cup of healing, and, indeed, 
Being so clouded with his grief and love, 
Small heart was his after the Holy Quest : 
If God would send the vision, well: if not, 
The Quest and he were in the hands of 

(heaven. 

,/And then, with small adventure met, 

(Sir Bors 
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, 
And found a people there among their 

(crags, 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were 

(left 
Paynim amid their circles, and the stones 
They pitch up straight to heaven : and their 

(wise men 
Were strong in that oldmagic which can 

(trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scoff 'd at 

(him 
x\nd this high Quest as at a simple thing : 
Told him he follow'd — almost A.rthur's 

(words — 
A mocking fire : 'what other fire than he, 
Whereby the bloodbeats, and the blossom 

(blows. 
And the sea rolls, and all the world is 

(warm'dr' 



ms ItOLY GRAIL. 



319 



And when his answer chnfed them, the 

(rough crowd, 
Hearing he had a difference with their 

(priests, 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him 

(into a cell 
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden 

(there 
In darkness thro* innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringiugheavens sweep 
Over him, fill by miracle — what else? — 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 
Such as no wind could move: and thro' the 

(gap 
Glimmer'd the streaming scud: then came 

(a night 
Still as the day was loud; and thro* the gap 
The seven clear stars of Arthur's Tabic 

(Round — 
For, brother, so one night, because they roll 
Thro* such u round in heaven, we named the 

(stars, 
Rejoicing in ourselves and in our king — 
And these, like bright eyes of familiar 

(friend, 
In on him shone, 'And then to me, to me,' 
Said good Sir Bors, 'beyond all Iwpes of 

(mine. 
Who scarce had pray'd or ask'd it for my- 

(self — 
Across the seven clear stars — grace to 

(me — 
In colour like the fingers of a hand 
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail 
Glided and past, and close upon it peal'd 
A sharp quick thunder.' Afterw^ards a maid, 
"Who kept our holy faith among her kin 
In secret, entering, loosed and let him go." 

To whom themonk: „AndI remember now 
That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was 
Who spake so low and sadly at our board ; 
And mighty reverent at our grace was he: 
A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, 
An out-door sign of all the warmth within, 
Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a 

(cloud. 
But heaven had meant it'for a sunny one: 
Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye 

'(reach'd 
The city, found ye all your knights return'd, 
Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy, 
Tell me, and what said each, and what the 

(King?' 



Then answer'd Percivale: „And that can Ij 
Brother, and truly ; since the living words 
Of so great men as Lancelot and our King 
Pass not from door to door and out again, 
But sit within the house. 0, when we 

(reach'd 
The city, our horses stumbling as they 

(trode 
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, 
Crack'd basilisks, and splinter'd cockatri- 

(ces, 
And shatter'd talbots, whicli had left the 

(stones 
Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the 

(hall. 

„And there sat Arthur on the dais-throne. 
And those that had gone out upon tlie 

(Quest, 
W^asted and worn, and but a tithe of tliem, 
And those that had not, stood before the 

(King. 
Who, when he saw me, rose, and bade me 

(hail, 
Saying, 'A welfare in thine eye reproves 
Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee 
On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. 
So fierce a gale made havock here of late 
Among the strange devices of our kings; 
Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours. 
And from the statue Merlin moulded for us 
Half-wren ch'd a golden wing; but now — 

(the quest. 
This vision — hast thou seen the Holy Cup, 
That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?' 

„So when I told him all thyself hastheard, 
Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve 
To pass away into the quiet life. 
He answer'd not, but, sharply turning, ask'd 
Of Gawain, 'Gawain, was this Quest for 

(thee?* 

//'ISFay, lord,' said Gawain, 'not for sucli 

(as I. 
Therefore I communed with a saintly man, 
Who made me sure the Quest was not for me; 
For I was much awearied of the Quest : 
But found a silk pavilion in a field, 
And merry maidens in it; and then tliis gale 
Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin, 
And blew my merry maidens all about 
W^ith all discomfort ; yea, and but for this. 
My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant 

(to me.' 



S20 



tDVLLS OF TBE KING. 



„He ceased ; and Arthur turn'd to whom 

(at first 
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, push'd 
Athwart tlie throng to Lancelot, caught his 

(hand, 
Held it, and there, half-hidden by him, stood. 
Until the King espied him, saying to him, 
'Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true 
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail ;' and 

(Bors, 
'Ask me not, for I may not speak of it, 
I saw it :' and the tears were in liis eyes. 

„Then there remain'd but Lancelot, for 

(the rest 
Spake but of sundry perils in the storm ; 
Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 
Our Arthur kept his best until the last ; 
'Thou, too, my Lancelot, 'ask'd the King' 

('my friend, 
Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail'd for 

(thee ?' 

,,'Our mightiest!' an swer'd Lancelot, with 

(a groan ; 
'0 Kin^!' — and when he paused, methought 

(I spied 
A dying fire of madness in his eyes — 
•0 King, my friend, if friend of thine I be. 
Happier are those that welter in their sin, 
Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime, 
Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
Xoble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Round that one sin, until the wholesome 

(flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be pluck'd asunder ; and when thy 

(knights 
Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
They might be pluck'd asunder. Then 1 

(spake 
To one most holy saint, who wept and said, 
That save they could be pluck'd asunder, all , 
My quest were but in vain; to whom I vow'd 
That I would work according as he will'd. 
And forth I went, and while I yearn'd and 

(strove 
To tear the twain asunder in my heart, 
My madness came upon me as of old, 
And whipl me into waste fields far away ; 
There was I beaten down by little men, * 
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my 

(a word 



And shadow of my spear had been enow 
To scare tliem from me once; and then Icame 
All in my folly to the naked shore. 
Wide fiats,where nothing but coarse grass- 

(es grew ; 
But such a blast, my King, began to blow, 
So loud a blast along the shore and sea, 
Ye could not hear the waters fur the blast, 
Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea 
Drove like a cataract, and all the sand 
Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens 
Were shaken with the motion and the sound . 
And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a 

(boat, 
Half-swallow'dinit, anchor'dwithachain; 
And in my madness to myself I said, 
'I will enibark and I will lose myself, 
And in the great sea w^ash away my sin.' 
I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. 
Seven days I drove along the dreary dee]), 
And with me drove the moon and all the 

(stars. 
And the wind fell, and on the seventh night 
I heard the shingle grinding in the surge, 
And felt the boat shock earth, and looking 

(up, 
Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonrk, 
A castle like a rock upon a rock. 
With chasm-like portals open to the sea. 
And steps that met the breaker! there w^as 

(none 
Stood near it but a lion on each side 
That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 
Then from the boat I leapt, and up thestairs. 
There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring 

(manes. 
Those two great beasts rose upright like a 

(man, 
Each sript a shoulder, and I stood between; 
And, when I wojild have smitten them, 

(heard a voice, 
'Doubt not, go forwa.rd ; if thou doubt, the 

(beasts 
Will tear thee piecemeal.' Then with vio- 

(lence 
The sword was dash'd from out my hand, 

(and fell. 
And up into the sounding hall I past; 
But nothing in the sounding hall I saw 
IS'o bench nor table, painting on the wall 
Or shield of knight: only 1 he rounded moon 
Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. 
But always in the quiet house I heard, 
Cltarasa lurk, high o'er nie asalaik. 



A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower 
To the eastward: up I climb'd a thousand 

(steps 
AVith pain: as in a dream I seeni'd to climb 
1 or ever : at the last I reach'd a door, 
A light was in the crannies, and I heard, 
'Glory and joy and honour to our Lord 
And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.* 
Then in my madness I essay'd the door ; 
It gave ; and thro' a stormy glare, a heat 
As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, 
Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I w^as, 
With such a fierceness that I swoou'd 

(away — 
0, yet meth ought I saw the Holy Grail, 
All pall'd in crimson samite, and around 
Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and 

(eyes. 
And but for all my madness and my sin 
mu\ ^^f^ ^y swooning, I had sworn I saw 
Ihat which I saw; but what I saw was 

(veil'd 
And cover'd; and this quest was not forme.' 

„So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot 

(left 
The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain—nay 
Brother, I need not tell thee foolish 

(words,— 
A reckless and irreverent knight was he 
Now bolden'd by the silence of his King — 
Well, I will tell thee : '0 king, my lieee ''he 

(said, '^ ' 

'Hath Gawain fail'din any quest of thine ^ 
^ ^f^^r^'^ I stinted stroke in foughten 

(field ? 
But as for thine, my good friend, Percivale 
Thy holy nun and thou have driven men 

(mad, 

Yea, made our mightiest madder thai> our 

(least. 
But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, 
1 will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat 
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl 
To holy virgins in their ecstacies, 
Henceforward.' 

. "'I'eafer,' said the blameless Kino- 
'Gawain, and blinder unto holy thino-s °' 
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows 
Being too blind to have desire to see ' 
But ]f indeed there came a sign from 

(heaven. 
Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale 



THE IIOLr GR^IL 



?>2l 

For these have seen according to their sio-ht 
For every fiery prophet in old times, " 

And all tlie sacred madness of the bard 
When God made music thro' them, could 

(but speak 
His music by t]>e framework and the chord- 
And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth . 

'jSay __ but thou errest, Lancelot: never 

^°(man^" ^^ true and noble in knight and 

Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, 

r^rew^^ ^ closeness, but apart there 

^7o^f ^^^^* ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ *^^^^ spakest 

^Tue'ss"?^^ of knighthood and pure noble- 

Whereto see thou, that it may bear its 
(flower. 

(ktr hts^^^^'^ I not too truly, my 
Was I too dark a prophet when I said 
io those who went upon the Holy Quest, 
That most of them would follow wandering 

(fires, '^ 

^Tg^one"" ^^^ q^aginire? - lost to me and 
And left me gazing at a barren board, 
(tithe -^"^ Order - scarce return'd a 

Mvi^''\''^f^^''..^^ ^^^^ t^e ^'ision came 
My greatest hardly will believe he saw 
Another hath beheld it afar off 
And leaving human wrongs to right them- 

(selves. 
Cares but to pass into the silent life - 
And one hath had the vision face to face 
And now his chair desires him here in vain. 
However they may crown him otherwhere. 

v'And some among you held, that if the 

(Jvmg 
Had seen the sight he would hare sworn 

(tne vow : 
Isot easily, seeing that the King must 

(guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plou^^h 
\^ homay not wander from theallotted field'. 
Before his work be done; but, being done ' 
Let visions of the ni^ht or of the day 

11 



332 



IBllLS OF THE KING. 



Come, as they will \ and many a time they 

(come, 
Until this earth he walks on seems not 

(earth, 
This light that strikes his eveball is not 

(light, 
This air that smites his foreliead is not air 
But vision — yea, his very liand and foot — 
In moments when lie feels he cannot die, 
And knows himself no vision to himself, 
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
"Who rose again : ye have seen wliat ye have 

(seen.', 

„So spake the king: I knew not all he 

(meant.'' 



PELLEAS AIS'P ETTARRE, 

King Arthur' made new knights to fill the 

(gap 
Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat 
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors 
Were softly sunder'd, and thro' these a 

(youth. 
Pel leas, and the sweet smell of the fields 
Past, and the sunshine came along with him. 

,/Make me thy knight, liecause I know. 

(Sir King, 
All that belongs to knighthood, and I love,' 
Sucli was his cry; for having heard the King 
Had let proclaim a tournament — the prize 
A golden circlet and a knightly sword, 
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won 
The golden circlet, for himself the sword: 
And there were those who knew him near 

(the King 
And promised for him: and Arthur made 

(liim knight. 

And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the 

(isles — 
But lately come to liis inheritance, 
And lord of many a barren isle was lie — 
Riding at noon, a day or twain before, 
Across the forest call'd of Dean, to find 
Caerleon and the King, liad felt the sun 
Jjcat like a strong knight on his helm, and 

(reel'd 
Almost to falling from his horse; but saw 
Near him a mound of even-sloping side, 
AVhereon a hundred stately beeches grew, 
And hereaud there greathollies under thera. 
But for a mile all round was open space, 



And fern and heath: and slowlyPelleasdrew 
To that dim day, then binding his good horse 
To a tree, cast himself down ; and as he lay 
At random looking over the brown earth ' 
Thro' that green-glooming twilight of the 

(grove, 
It seem'd to Pelleas that the fern without 
Burnt as a living fire of emeralds, 
So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it. 
Then o'er it'crost the dimness of a cloud 
Floating, and once the shadow of a bird 
Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed . 
And since he loved all maidens, but no maid 
In special, half-awake he wisper'd, „ Where? 
where r I love thee, tho' I know thee not. 
For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere, 
And I will make thee with my spear and 

(sword 
ks famous — my queen, my Guinevere, 
For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.'' 

Suddenly waken'd with a sound of talk 
And laughter at the limit of the wood. 
And glancing thro' the hoary boles, he saw. 
Strange as to some old prophet might have 

(seem'd 
A vision hovering on a sea of fire. 
Damsels in divers colours like the cloud 
Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them 
On horses, and the horses richly trapt 
Breast-high in that bright line of bracken 

(stood: 
And all the damsels talk'd confusedly, 
And one was pointing this way, and one 

(that. 
Because the way was lost. 

And Pelleas rose, 
And loosed his horse, and led him to the 

(light. 
There she that seem'd the chief among them 

(said, 
//In happy time behold our pilot-star! 
Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride 
Arm'd as ye see, to tilt against the kniglils 
There at Caerleon, but have lost our way : 
To right? to left? straightforward? back 

(again? 
Which ? telt us quickly" 

And Pelleas gazing thought, 
„Is Guinevere herself so beautiful?'' 
For large her violet eyes look'd, and her 

(bloom 
A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heavens, 



And round lier limbs, mature iu womuii- 

(hood, 
And slender was her hand and snmll lier 

(shape, 
And but for those large eyes, the haunts of 

(scorn, 
She miglit have seem'd a toy to trifle with, 
And pass and care no more. But while he 

(gazed 
The beauty of her flesh abash'd the boy 
As tho' it were the beauty of her soul -. ' 
For as the base man, judging of the good 
Puts his own baseness in him by default ' 
Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend 
All the young beauty of his own soul to hers, 
Believing her ; and when she spake to him, 
btammer d, and could not make her a replv 
For out of the waste islands had he come"' 
Where saving his own sisters he had known 
^carce any but the women of his isles 
Hough wives, that laugh'd and scream'd 

(against the gulls, 
Makers of nets, and living from the sea. 

Tlien with a slow smile turn'd the ladv 

(.round 
And look'd upon her people ; and as when 
A stone is Hung into some sleeping tarn 
The circle widens till it lip the marge ' 
Spread the slow smile thro' all her companv 
Three knights were thereamongt and thev 

(too smiled, ^ 

Scorning him; for the lady was Ettarre, 
And she was a great lady in her land. 
Again she said, „0 wild and of the woods. 
Knowest thou not the fashion of ourspeech? 
(facr ^^^^^^s ^^<^ given thee a fair 
Lacking a tongue?" 

r w^i ^ f . "^ damsel," answer'd he, 
Moo ^^'eanis; and coming out of 

Wa's dazzled by the sudden light, and crave 

Pardon: but will ye to Cearleon? I 

Go likewise : shall I lead you to the Kinj, . 

,,Lead then," she said : and thro' the woods 

(they went. 
And while they rode, the meaning in his 

(eyes, *= ^ 

His tenderness of manner, and chaste awe 
Mis broken utterances and bashfulness ' 
Were all a burthen to her, and iu her heart 
bhe mutter'd, „I have lighted on a fool 



PELLEAS AND ETTAUUE. 



323 



Haw, yet so stale !" But since her mind was 

(bent 
On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name 
And title, „Queen of Beauty," in the lists 

7th ~"m ^^^°^*^^"^ ^i"^ so strong, she 
That peradventure he will fight for me 
And win the circlet : therefore flatter'd him 
Being so gracious, that he well-nigh deem'd 
Mis wish by hers was echo'd; and her 

(knights 
And all her damsels too were gracious to 

For she was a great lady. 

p And when they reach'd 

Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she 

(■said ^^^^^^' "^ the strong hand," she 
'^(me^^^'' at mine ! but wilt thou fight for 

And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas, 
i hat I may love thee ?" 

Then his helpless heart 
Leapt, and he cried „ Ay ! wilt thou if I win?" 

I "^J' *^1^A ^^^^ ^'" s^^ answer'd, and she 
I (laugh'd, 

I And straitly nipt the hand, and flung it 
(from her; * 

Then glanced askew at those three knights 
(of hers, ^ 

Till all her ladies laugh'd along with her. 

,,0 happy world," thought Pelleas, ,;all 

(meseems, ' 

Are happy; I the happiest of them all." 
^or slept that night for pleasure in his 

(blood, 
And green wood-ways, and eyes among the 

(leaves ; ° 

Then being on the morrow knighted, sware 
io love one only. And as he came away 
i he men who met him rounded on their 

And wonder'd after him, because his face 
bhone like the countenance ofa priest of old 
Against the flame about a sacrifice 
Kindled by fire from heaven : so glad was he. 

Then Arthur made vast banquets, and 

(strange knights 
From the four winds came in : and each one 

(sat, 
Tho' served with choice from air, land 

(stream, and sea, 



334 



IDi'LLS OF THE KL\G. 



Oft iu mid-bcuiqiiet nieasuriiig with his eyes 
His ueiglibour's make and might: and Pel- 

(leas look'd 
Noble among tbe noble, for lie dream'd 
His lady loved him, and he knew himself 
Loved of the King : and him his new-made 

(knight 
Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved 

(him more 
Thau all the ranged reasons of the world. 

Then blush'd and brake the morning of 

(the jousts, 
And this was call'd /The Tournament of 

(Youth:" 
For Arthur, loving his young knight, with- 

(held 
His older and his mightier from the lists, 
That Pelleas might obtain his lady's love, 
According to her promise, and remain 
Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the 

(jousts 
Down in tlie Hat field by the shore of Usk 
Holden : the gilded parapets were crown'd 
With faces, and the great tower fill'd with 

(eyes 
Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. 
There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field 
With honour: so by that strong hand of his 
The sword and golden circlet were achieved. 

Then rang the shout his lady loved: the 

(heat 
Of pride and glory fired her face; her eye 
Sparkled; she caught the circlet from his 

(lance, 
And there before the people crown'd herself. 
So for the last time she was gracious to him. 

Then at Caerleon for a space — her look 
Bright for all others, cloudier on her 

(knight — 
Linger'd Ettarre : and seeing Pelleas droop, 
Said Guinevere, „We marvel at thee much, 
damsel, wearing this unsunny face 
To him who won thee glory !■' And she said, 
;Had ye not held your Lancelot in your 

(bower, 
-My Queen, he had not won." Whereat the 

(Queen, 
As one whose foot is bitten by an ant, 
Glanced down upon her, turn'd and went 

(her way. 

But after, when her damsels, and herself, 



And those three knights all set their facei 

(home, 
Sir Pelleas follow'd. She that saw him 

(cried, 
,,Damsels — and yet I should be shamed to 

(say it — 
I cannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back 
Among yourselves. W^ould rather that we 

(had 
Some rough old knight who knew the 

(worldly way, 
Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride 
And jest with: take him to yau, keep him 

(off. 
And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will, 
Old milky fables of the wolf and sh^ep, 
Such as the wholesome mothers tell their 

(boys. 

Nay, should ye try him with a merry one 
To find his mettle, good: and if he fiy us. 
Small matter! let him." This her damsels 

(heard. 
And mindful of her small and cruel hand. 
They, closing round him thro' the journey 

(home. 
Acted her best, and always from her side 
Bestrain'd him with all manner of device, 
So that he could not come to speech with 

(her. 
And when she gain'd her castie, upsprang 

(the bridge, 
Down rang the grate of iron thro' the 

(groove. 
And he was left alone in open field. 

,,These be the ways of ladies," Pelleas 

(thought, 
,/To those Avho love them, trials of our faith. 
Yea, let her prove me to the uttermost, 
For loyal to the uttermost am I." 
So made his moan; and, darkness falling, 

(sought 
A priory not far off, there lodged, but rose 
With morning every day, and, moist or dry, 
Full-arm'd upon his charger all day long 
Sat by the walls, and no one open'd to him. 

And this persistance turn'd her scorn to 

(wrath. 
Then calling her three knights, she charged 

(them, „Out! 
And drive him from the walls." And out 

(they came. 
But Pelleas overthrew them as they dash'd 



VELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 



335 



Against him one by one ;Hud these return'd, 
But still he kept his watch beneath the 
(wall. 

Thereon her wrath became abate; and 

(once, 
A week beyond, while walking on the walls 
With her three knights, she pointed down- 

(ward, „Look, 
He haunts me — I cannot breathe — be- 

(sieges me; 
Down! strike him! put my hate into your 

(strokes, 
And drive him from my walls." And down 

(they went, 
And Pelleas overthrew them one by one; 
And from the tower above him cried Et- 

(tarre, 
„Bind him, and bring him in." 

He heard her voice ; 
Tiien let the strong hand, which had over- 

(thrown 
Her minion-knights, by those he overthrew 
Be bounden straight, and so they brought 

(him in. 

Then when he came before Ettarre, the 

(sight 
Of her rich beauty made him at one glance 
More bondsman in his heart than in his 

(bonds. 
Yet with good cheer he spake, „Behold me, 

(Lady, 
A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will ; 
And if thou keep me in thy donjon here. 
Content am I so that I see thy face 
But once a day: for I have sworn my vows, 
And thou hast given thy promise, and I 

(know 
That all these pains are trials of my faith. 
And that thyself when thou hast seen me 

(strain'd 
And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length 
Yield me thy love and know me for thy 

(knight.'' 

Then she began to rail so bitterly, 
With all her dam.^els, he was stricken mute; 
But when she mock'd his vows and the 

(great King, 
Lighted on words: „For pity of thine own 

(self, 
Peace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and 

(mine ?" 



„Thou fool," she said, „ I never heard his 

(voice 
But long'd to break away. Unbind him 

(now. 
And thrust him out of doors; for save he be 
Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones, 
He will return no more." And those, her 

(three, 
Laugh'd, and unbound, and thrust him 

(from the gate. 

And after this, a week beyond, again 
She call'dthem, saying, /, There he watches 

(yet, 

There like a dog before his master's door! 
Kick'd, he returns : do ye not hate him, ye '■ 
Ye know yourselves : how can ye bide at 

(peace, 
Affronted with his fulsome innocence? 
Arfe ye but creatures of the board and bed, 
No men to strike ? Fall on him all at once. 
And if ye slay him I reck not : if ye fail. 
Give ye the slave mine order to be bound, 
Bind "him as heretofore, and bring him in : 
It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds." 

She spake ; and at her will they coucli'd 

(their spears, 
Three against one : and Gawain passing by, 
Bound upon solitary adventure, saw 
Low down beneath the shadow of those 

(towers 
A villainy, three to one : and thro' his heart 
The fire of honour and all noble deeds 
Flash'd, and he calPd, „1 strike upon thy 

(side — 
The caitiffs !" ,,Nay," said Pelleas, ,/but for- 

(bear, 
He needs no aid who doth his lady's will." 

So Gawain, looking at the villainy done, 
Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness 
Trembled and quiv er'd, as the dog, withheld 
A moment from the vermin that he sees 
Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills. 

And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three; 
xind they rose up, and bound, and brought 

(him in. 
Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burn'd 
Full on her knights in many an evil name 
Of craven, weakling, and thrice-beaten 

(hound : 
„Yet, take him, ye tliat scarce are fit to 

(touch, 



326 



WYLLS OF THE KING, 



Far less to biud, your victor, and thrust him 

(out, 
And let who will release him fromhis bonds. 
And if he comes again" — there she brake 

(short ; 
And Pelleas answer'd, ,/Lady, for indeed 
I loved yoii and I deem'd you beautiful, 
I cannot brook to see your beauty marr'd 
Thro' evil spite : and if ye love me not, 
I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: 
I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, 
Than to be loved again of you — farewell ; 
And tho' ye kill my hope, not yet my love, 
Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more." 

While thus he spake, she gazed upon the 

(man 
Of princely bearing, tho' in bonds, and 

(thought, 
7 Why have I push'd him from me? this man 

(loves. 
If love there be : yet him I loved not, Why ? 
I deem'd him fool? yea, so ? or that in him 
xi something — was it nobler than myself? — 
Seem'd my reproach? He is not of my kind. 
He could not love me, did he know me well. 
]N"ay, let him go — and quickly." And her 

(knights 
Laugh'd not, but thrust him bounden out 

(of door. • 

Forth sprang Gawain, and loosed him 

(from his bonds, 
And flung them o'er the walls ; and after- 

(ward, 
Shaking his hands, as from a lazar's rag, 
„Faith of my body," he said, ,/and art thou 

(not — 
Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made 
Knight of his table; yea and he that won 
The circlet? wherefore hast thou so defamed 
Thy brotherhood in me and all the rest, 
As let these caitiffs on thee work their will? " 

And Pelleas answer'd, „0, their wills are 

(hers 
For whom I won the circlet; and mine, hers, 
Thus to be bounden, so to see her face, 
Marr'd tho' it be with spite and mockery 

(now, 
Other than when I found her in the woods ; 
And tho' she hath me bounden but in spite, 
And all to flout me, when they bring me in. 
Let me be bounden, I shall see her face; 
Else must I die thro' mine unhappiness." 



And Gawain answer'd kindly tho* in scorn, 
„ Why, let my lady bind me if she will, 
And let my lady beat me if she will : 
But an she send her delegate to thrall 
These fighting hands of mine — Christ kill 

(me then 
But I will slice him handless by the wrist, 
And let my lady sear the stump for him, 
Howl as he may. But hold me for your 

(friend : 
Come, ye know nothing : here I pledge m,y 

(troth. 
Yea, by the honour of the Table Round, 
I will be leal to thee and work thy work, 
And tame thyjailing princess to thine hand- 
Lend me thine horse and arms, and I will say 
That I have slain thee. She will let me in 
To hear the manner of thy fight and fail ; 
Then, when I come within her counsels, then 
From prime to vespers will I chant thy 



As prowest knight and truest lover, more 
Than any have sung thee living, till she long 
To have thee back in lusty life again, 
]S"ot to be bound, save by white bonds and 

(warm. 
Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy 

(horse 
And armour : let me go : be comforted : 
Give me three days to melt her fancy, and 

(hope 
The third night hence will bring thee news 

(of gold." 

Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his 

(arms. 
Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took 
Gawain's, and said, „Betray me not, but 

(help — 
Art thou not he whom men call ligkt-of- 

(love?' 

„Ay," said Gawain, for women be so 

(light." 
Then bounded forward to the castle walls, 
And raised a bugle hanging from his neck, 
And winded it, and that so musically 
That all the old echoes hidden in the wall 
Rang out like hollow woods at huntingtide. 

Up ran a score of damsels to the tower ; 
„Avaunt," they cried, ,,our lady loves thee 

(not." 
But Gawain lifting up his visor said, 
/Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur's court, 



TELLE AS AND ETTARRE. 



827 



And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate: 
! Behold his horse and armour. Open gate, 
I And I will make you merry." 

I And down they ran, 

i Her damsels, crying to their lady, ,/Lo ! 

' Pelleas is dead — he told us — he that hath 

His horse and armour : will ye let him in ? 

He slew him ! Gawain, Gawain of the court, 

Sir Gawain — there he waits below the wall, 

Blowing his bugle as who should say him 

(nay." 

And so, leave given, straight on tliro' open 
(door 
Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteous- 

■ (ly, 

„Dead, isit so?" she ask'd. „Ay,ay,''saidhe, 
„ And oft in dying cried upon your name." 
,/Pity on him," she answer'd „a goodknight, 
But never let me bide one hour at peace." 
„ Ay," thought Gawain, and ye be fair enow: 
But I to your dead man have given my troth, 
That whom ye loathe him will I make you 
(love." 

So those three days, aimless about the 

(land, 
Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering 
Waited, until the third night brought a 

(moon, 
With promise of large light on woods and 

(ways. 

The night was hot : he could not rest, but 

(rode 
Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his 

(horse 
Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates. 
And no watch kept ; and in thro* these he 

(past, 
And heard but his own steps, and his own 

(heart 
Beating, for nothing moved but his own self. 
And his own shadow. Then he crost the 

(court, 
And saw the postern portal also wide 
Yawning ; and up a slope of garden, all 
Of roses white and red, and wild ones mixt 
ind overgrowing them, went on, and found. 
Here too, all hush'd below the mellow moon, 
"iave that one rivulet from a tiny cave 
i;ame lightening downward, and so spilt 

(itself "" 
ImoDg the roses, and was lost again. 



Then was he ware that wliite pavilions 

(rose, 
Three from the bushes, gilden-peakt : in one, 
Bed after revel, droned'her lurdane knights 
Slumbering, and their three squires across 

(their feet : 
In one their malice on the placid lip 
Froz'n by sweet sleep, four of her damsels 

(lay: 
And in the third, the circlet of the jousts 
Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Et- 

(tarre. 

Back, as a hand that pushes thro' the leaf 
To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew : 
Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears 
To cope with, or a traitor proven; or hound 
Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame 
Creep with his shadow thro' the court again, 
Fingering at his sword-h andl e until he stood 
There on the castle-bridge once more, and 

(thought 
„I will go back, and slay them where they 

(lie." 

And so went back and seeing them yet in 

(sleep 
Said, ,,Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep. 
Your sleep is death," and drew the sword, 

(and thought, 
,/What! slay a sleeping knight? the King 

(hath bound 
And sworn me to this brotherhood;" again, 
„ Alas that ever a knight should be so false." 
Then turn'd and so return'd, and groaning 

(laid 
The naked sword athwart their naked 

(throats. 
There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay. 
The circlet of the tourney round her brows, 
And the sword of the tourney across her 

(throat. 

And forth he past, and mounting on his 

(horse 
Stared at her towers that, larger than them- 

(selves 
In their own darkness, throng'd into the 

(moon. 
Then crush'd the saddle with his thighs, 

(and clench'd 
His hands, and maddened with himself and 

(moan'd : 

„Would they have risen against me in 

(their blood 



328 



IDFLLS OF THE KJKG. 



At tlie last day ? I miglit liave answer'd them 
Even ])efore higli God. towers so strong, 
Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze 
The crack of earthquake shivering to jour 

(base 
Split you, and Hell burst up yoar harlot 

(roofs 
Bellowing, and charr'd you thro' and thro' 

(within, 
Elack as the harlot's heart — hollow as a 

(skull ! 
Let the fierce east scream thro' your eyelet- 

(holes 
And whirl the dust of harlots round and 

(round 
In dung and nettles! hiss, snake — I saw 

(him there — 
Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Whoyells 
Here in the still sweet summer niglit, but 

(I- 
I, the poor Pelleas whom she call'd her fool? 
Fool, beast — he, she, or I? myself most 

(foolj; 
Beast too, as lacking human wit — dis- 

(graced, 
Dishonour'd all for trial of true love — 
Love ? — we be all alike : only the king 
Hath made us fools and liars. ^ noble 

(vows! 

great and sane and simple race of brutes 
That own no lust because they have no 

(law! 
For why should I have loved her to my 
(shame? 

1 loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. 
I never loved her, I but lusted for her — 
Away — " 

He dash'd the rowel into his horse, 
And bounded forth and vanish'd thro' the 
(night. 

Then she, that felt the cold touch on her 

(throat. 
Awaking knew the sword, and turn'd her- 

(self 
To Gawain : „Liar, for thou hast not slain 
This Pelleas! here he stood and might have 

(slain 
Me and thyself." And he that tells the tale 
Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd 
To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, 
And only lover; and thro' her love lier life 
Wasted and pined, desiring liim in vain. 



But he by wild and way, for lialf the 

(night, 
And over hard and soft, striking the sod 
From out the soft, the spark from off the 

(hard, 
Bode till the star above the wakening sun. 
Beside that tower where Percivale was 

(cowl'd, 
Glanced from the rosy forehead of the 

(dawn. 
For so the words were flash'd into his heart 
He knew not whence or wherefore: „0 

(sweet star. 
Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn.'' 
And there he would have wept, but felt his 

(eyes 
Harder and drier than a fountain bed_ 
In summer: thither came the village girls 
And linger'd talking, and they come no 

(more 
Till the sweet heavens have fill'd it from 

(the heights 
Again with living waters in the change 
Of seasons : hard his eyes ; harder his heart 
Seem'd; but so weary were his limbs, that 

(he, 
Gasping, „0f Arthur's hall am I, but here. 
Here let me rest and die," cast himself 

(down. 
And gulph'd his griefs in inmost sleep: so 

(lay, 
Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired 
The hall of Merlin, and the morning star 
Reel'd in the smoke, brake into flame, and 

(fell. 

He woke, and being ware of some one 

(ni?h, 
Sent hands upon him, as to tear him, crying 
„False ! and 1 held thee pure as Guinevere.'*' 

But Percivale stood near him and replied, 
,/Am I but false as Guinevere is pure? 
Or art thou mazed with dreams ? or being 

(one 
Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard 
That Lancelot" — there he check'd himself 

(and paused. 

Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with 

(one 
Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword 
That' made it plunges thro' the wound 

(again. 



PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 



329 



And pricks it deeper: aud he shrank and 

(wail'd, 
vis the Queen false?" and Percivale was 

(mute. 
„Have any of our Round Table held their 

(vows?" 
And Percivale made answer not a word. 
„Is the king true ?" „The king ! " said Per- 

(civale. 
„Why then let men couple at once with 

(wolves. 
What! art thou mad?" 

But Pelleas, leaping up, 
Kan thro' the doors and vaulted on his horse 
And hed : small pity upon his horse had he, 
Or on himself, or any, and when he met 
A cripple, one that held a hand for alms — 
Hunch*d as he was, and like an old dwarf- 

(elm 
That turns its back on the salt blast, the 

(boy 
Paused not but overrode him, shouting 

(,/False, 
And false with Gawain!" and so left him 

(bruised 
And battered, and fled on, and hill and wood 
Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, 
That follows on the turning of the world, 
Darken'd the common path: he twitch'd 

(the reins. 
And made his beast that better knew it, 

(swerve 
Now off it and now on ; but when he saw 
High up in heaven the hall that Merlin 

(built, 
Blackening against the dead-green stripes 

(of even, 
„Black nest of rats," he groan'd, „ye build 

(too high." 

Not long thereafter from the city gates 
Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily. 
Warm with a gracious parting from the 

(Queen, 
Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star 
And marvelling what it was: on whom the 

(boy, 
Across the silent seeded meadow-grass 
Borne, clash'd: and Lancelot, saying, 

(,, What name hast thou 
That ridest here so blindly and so hard ?'• 
,,I have no name." he shouted, ,, ft scourge 

(am I 
To lash the treasons of the Table Round," 



,,Yea, but thy name?" ,1 have many 

(names" he cried : 
„I am wrath and shame and hate and evil 

(fame, 
And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast 
And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the 

(Queen." 
„First over me," said Lancelot, „shalt thou 

(pass." 
vKght therefore," yell'd the other, and 

(either knight 
Drew back a space, and when they closed, 

(at once 
The weary steed of Pelleasflounderiug flung 
His rider, who called out from the dark field 
,,Tliou art false as Hell : slay me : I have no 

(sword." 
Then Lancelot, ,,Yea, between thy lips — 

(aud sharp ; 
But here will I disedge it by thy death." 
Slay then," he shriek'd, „niy will is to be 

(slain." 
And Lancelot, with his heel upon the fall'n, 
Rolling his eyes, a moment stood, then 

(spake : 
„Rise, weakling; I am Lancelot: say thy say ." 

And Lancelot slowly rode his war-horse 

(back 
To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while 
Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark 

(field, 
And foUow'd to the citv. It chanced that 

(both 
Brake into hall together, worn and pale. 
There with her knights and dames was Gui- 

(nevere. 
Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot 
So soon return'd, and then on Pelleas, him 
Who had not greeted her, but cast himself 
Down on a bench, hard-breathing. ./Have ye 

(fought?" 
She ask'd of Lancelot. //Ay, my Queen," he 

(said. 
./And thou hast overthrown him?" ./Ay, my 

(Queen." 
Then she, turning to Pelleas, 7O youug 

(knight. 
Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee 

(fail'd ^ 
So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, 
A fall from him?" Then, for he answered 

(not, 
^Or hast thou other griefs ? If I, the Queen, 



330 IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

May help them, loose thy tongue, and let ! Look'd hard upon lier lover, he on her 



(rae know." 
But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce 
She quail'd; and he, hissing ,,1 have no 

(sword," 
Sprang from the door into the dark. The 

(Queen 



And each foresaw the dolorous day to be. 
And all talk died, as in a grove all song 
Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey, 
Then a long silence came upon the hall," 
And Modred thought, „The time is hard at 
(hand." 



THE LAST TOURjS^AMENT. 

Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood 

Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, 

At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods. 

Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hail. 

And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand. 

And from the crown thereof a carcanet 

Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize 

Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday. 

Came Tristram, saying, 'Why skip ye'^so. Sir FoolV 

For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once 
Far down beneath a winding wall of rock 
Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead, 
From roots like some black coil of carven snakes 
Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air 
Bearing an eagle's nest: and thro' the tree 
Rush'd ever a rainy wind, and thro' the wind 
Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree 
Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, 
This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, 
And all unscarr'd from beak or talon, brought 
A maiden babe ; which Arthur pitying took, 
Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen 
But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms 
Received, and after loved it tenderly. 
And named it iS'estling; so forgot herself 
A moment, and her cares; till that young life 
Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold 
Past from her; and in time the carcanet 
Vext her with plaintive memories of the child: 
So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, 
'Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence, 
And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize.' 

To whom the King, 'Peace to thine eagle-borne 
Dead nestling, and this honour after death, 
Following thy will! but, my Queen, I muse 
Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone 
Those' diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, 
And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear.' 

'Would rather ye had let them fall,' she cried, 
'Plunge and be lost — ill-fated as they were. 



THE LAST TOVRNAMENT. 831 

A bitterness to me! — ye look amazed, 

]N'ot knowing they were'lost as soon as given -- 

Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out 

Above the river — that unhappy child 

Past in her barge : but rosier luck will go 

With these rich jewels, seeing that they came 

Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, 

But the sweet body of a maiden babe. 

Perchance — who knows? — tbe purest of thy knights 

May win them for the purest of my maids.' 

She ended, and the cry of a great jousts 
With trumpet-blowings ran on all the ways 
From Camelot in among the faded fields 
To furthest towers; and everywhere the kniglits 
Arm'd for a day of glory before the King. 

But on the hither side of that loud morn 
Into the hall stagger'd, his visage ribb'd 
From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose 
Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off. 
And one with shatter'd fingers dangling lame, 
A churl, to whom indignantly the King, 

'My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast 
Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? 
Man was it who marr'd heaven's image in thee thus? 

Then, sputtering thro' the hedge of splinter'd teeth 
Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump 
Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl, 

'He took them and he drave them to his tower — 
Some hold he was a table-knight of thine — 
A hundred goodly ones — the Bed Knight, he — 
Lord, I was tending swine, and the Bed Knight 
Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower ; 
And when I call'd upon thy name as one 
That doest right by gentle and by churl, 
Maim'd me and mauPd, and would outright have slain, 
Savelthat he swarfe me to a message, saying, 
„Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I 
Have founded my Bound Table in the North, 
And whatsoever his own knights have sworn 
My knights have sworn the counter to it — and say 
My tower is full of harlots, like his court. 
But mine are worthier, seeing they profess 
To be none other than themselves — and say 
My knights are all adulterers like his own. 
But mine are truer, seeing they profess 
To be none other; and say his hour is come, 
The heathen are upon him, his long lance 
Broken, and his Excalibur a straw."' 



IDYLLS OF TBE KING. 

Then Arthur turu'd to Kay the seneschaJ, 
'Take tliou my churl, and tend him curiously 
Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole. 
The heathen — but that ever-climbing wave, 
Hurl'd back again so often in empty foam, 
Hath lain for years at rest — and renegades, 
Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom 
Tlie wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere, — 
Friends, thro' your manhood and your fealty, — now 
Make their last head like Satan in the North, 
My younger knights, new-made in whom your flower 
Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, 
Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, 
The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. 
But thou. Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place 
Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the fi'eld; 
For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it, 
Only to yield my Queen her own again? 
Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?' 

Thereto Sir Lancelot answer'd, 'It is well: 
Yet better if the King abide, and leave 
The leading of his younger knights to me. 
Else, for the King has will'd it, it is well.* 

Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow'd him. 
And while they stood without the doors, the King 
Turn'd to him saying. 'Is it then so well? 
Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he 
Of whom was written, ,,A sound is in his ears" — 
The foot that loiters, bidden go, — the glance 
That only seems half-loyal to command, — 
A manner somewhat fall'n from reverence — 
Or have I dream'd the bearing of our knights 
Tells of a manhood ever less and lower? 
Or whence the fear lest this my realm, uprear'd, 
By noble deeds at one with noble vows. 
From flat confusion and brute violences, 
Reel back into the beast, and be no more?' 

He spoke and taking all his younger knights, 
Down the slope city rode, and sharply turn'd 
North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen, 
Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, 
Watch'd her loj'd pass, and knew not that she sigh'd, 
Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme 
Of bygone Merlin, 'Where is he who knows? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' 

But when the morning of a tournament, 
By these in earnest those in mockery call'd 
The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, 
Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot, 
Bound whose sick head all night, like birds of prey, 



THE LAST T0VRNJ31ENT. 

The worlds of Artlmr flying sliriek'd, arose, 
And down a streetway hung with folds of pure 
White samite, and by fountains running wine, 
Were children sat in white with cups of gold, 
Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps 
Ascending, fiU'd his double-dragon'd chair. 

He glanced and saw the stately galleries. 
Dame, damsel, each thro' worship of their Queen 
Wliite-rohed in honour of the stainless child, 
And some with scatter'd jewels, like a bank 
Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. 
He look'd but once, and vail'd his eyes again. 

The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream 
To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll 
Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began: 
And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf 
And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume 
Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one 
Who sits and gazes on a faded Are, . 
When all the goodlier guests are past away, 
Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the lists. 
He saw the laws that ruled the tournament 
Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down 
Before his throne of arbitration cursed 
The dead babe and the follies of the King; 
And once the laces of a helmet crack'd. 
And show'd him, like a vermin in its hole, 
Modredj a narrow face-, anon he heard 
The voice that billow'd round the barriers roar 
An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight, 
But newly-enter'd, taller than the rest. 
And armour'd all in forest green, w^hereon 
There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, 
And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, 
With ever-scattering berries, and on shield 
A spear, a harp, a bugle — Tristram — late 
From overseas in Brittany return 'd. 
And marriage with a princess of that realm, 
Isolt the White — Sir Tristram of the Woods — 
Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain 
His own against him, and now yearn'd to shake 
The burthen off his heart in one full shock 
With Tristram ev'n to death: his strong hands gript 
And dinted the gilt dragons right and left. 
Until he groan 'd for wrath — so many of those, 
That ware their ladies* colours on the* casque. 
Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds. 
And there with gibes and flickering mockeries 
Stood, while he mutter'd, 'Craven crests! shame 
What faith have these in whom they sware to love? 
The glorv of our Eound Table is no more.' 



834 IBrilS OF THE Klh'G. 

So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems, 
Not speaking other word tlian 'Ha^st tliou won? 
Art tliou the purest, brother? See, the hand 
Wherewith thou takest this, is red!' to whom 
Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood, 
Made answer, My, but wherefore toss me this 
Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound? 
Let be thy fair Queen's fantasy. Strength of heart 
And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, 
Are winners in this pastime of our King. 
My hand — belike the lance hath dript upon it — 
No blood of mine, I trow; but chief knight, 
Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield. 
Great brother, thou nor I have made the world: 
Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.' 

And Tristram round the gallery made his horse 
Caracole, then baw'd his homage, bluntly saying, 
'Fair damsels, each to him who worships each 
Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold 
This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.' 
And most of these were mute, some anger' d, one 
Murmuring, 'All courtesy is dead,' and one, 
'The glory of our Round Table is no more.' 

Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung. 
And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day 
Went glooming down in wet and weariness: 
But under her black brows a swarthy dame 
Laugh'd shrilly, crying, 'Praise the patient saints, 
Our one white day of Innocence hath past, 
Tho' somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. 
The snowdrop only, flowering thro' the year, 
"Would make the world as blank as winter-tide. 
Come — let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen's 
And Lancelot's, at this night's solemnity 
With all the kindlier colours of the field.' 

So dame and damsel glitter d at the feast 
Variously gay-, for he that tells the tale 
Liken'd them, saying, as when an hour of cold 
Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, 
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers 
Pass under white, till the warm hour returns 
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again; 
So dame and damsel cast the simple white, 
And glowing in all colours, the live grass, 
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced 
About the revels, and with mirth so loud 
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, 
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts. 
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower 
Parted, and in lier bosom pain was lord. 



THE LAST T0URNA3IENT. 335 

And little I)a,';onet on the morrow morn, 
High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, 
Danced like a witlier'd leaf hefore the liall 
Then Tristram saying, 'Why skip ye so. Sir I'ool ?' 
Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied, 
*Belike for lack of wiser company; 
Or being fool, and seeing too much wit 
Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip 
To know myself the wisest knight of all.' 
'Ay, fool,' said Tristram, 'but 'tis eating dry 
To dance without a catch, a roundelay 
To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp, 
And while he twangled little Dagonet stood, 
Quiet as any water-sodden log 
Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook ; 
But when the twangling ended, skipt again; 
Then being ask'd, 'Why skipt ye not. Sir Fool r' 
Made answer, 'I had liefer twenty years 
Skip to the broken music of my brains 
Than any broken music ye can make.* 
Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, 
'Good now, what music have I broken, foolV 
xind little Dagonet, skipping, Arthur, the king's; 
For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, 
Thou makest broken music with thy bride. 
Her daintier namesake down in Brittany — 
And so thou breakest Arthur's music too.' 
'Save for that broken music in thy brains. 
Sir Fool,' said Tristram, 'I would break th.y head. 
Fool, I came late, the heathen wars were o'er. 
The life had flown, we sware but by the shell — 
I am but a fool to reason with a fool — 
Come, thou art crabb'd and sour: but lean me down, 
Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses' 'ears. 
And harken if my music be^not true. • 

,,'Free love — free field — Ave love but while we may: 
The woods are hush'd, their music is no more: 
The leaf is dead, the yearning past away: 
New leaf, new life — rtie days of frost are o'er : 
Kew life, new love, to suit the newer day: 
New loves are sweet as those that went before: 
Free love — free field — we love but while we may." 

'Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune, 
Not stood stockstill. 1 made it in the woods. 
And heard it ring as true as tested gold.' 

But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand, 
'Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday 
Made to ruh wine? — but this had run itself 
All out like a long life to a sour end — 
And them that round it sat with golden cups 
To hand the wine to whomsoever came — 



IDYLLS OF THE Kli\G. 

The twelve small damosels white as Innocence, 

In honour of poor Innocence the balje, 

"Who left tlie gems which Innocence the Queen 

Lent to the King, and Innocence tlie King 

Gave for a prize — and one of those white slips 

Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, 

,,Drink, drink, Sir Fool," and thereupon I drank, 

Spat — pish — the cup was gold, the draught was mud.' 

And Tristram, 'Was it muddier than thy gibes? 
Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee? — 
Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool — 
,,rear God: honour the king — his one true knight — 
Sole follower of the vows" — for here be they 
Who knew thee swine enow before I came, 
Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King 
Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up 
It frighted all free fool from out thy heart; 
Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine, 
A naked aught — yet swine I hold thee still, 
For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine,' 

xind little Dagonet mincing with his feet, 
'Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck 
In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch 
Of music, since I care not for thy pearls. 
Swine? I have wallow'd, I have wash'd — the world 
Is flesh and shadow — I have had my day. 
The dirty nurse. Experience, in her kind 
Hath foul'd me — an I wallow'd, then I wash'd — 
I have had my day and my philosophies — 
And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool. 
Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese 
Troop'd round a Paynim harper once, who thrumm'd 
On such a wire as musically as thou 
Some such fine song — but never a king's fool.' 

xind Tristram, 'Then were swine, goats, asses, geese 
• The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard 
Had such a mastery of his mystery 
That he could harp his wife up out of Hell." 

Then Dagonet, 'turning on the ball of his foot, 
'And whither harp'st thou thine? down! and thyself 
Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou, 
That harpest downward! Dost thou know the star 
We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?" 

And Tristram, 'Ay, Sir fool, for when our King 
Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights. 
Glorying in each new glory, set his name 
High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.' 

And Dagonet answcr'd, 'Ay, and when th.e land 



THE LAST TOVRNJMENT. 337 

Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself 
To babble about liira, all to show your wit — 
And whether lie were king by courtesy, 
Or king by right — and so went harping down 
The black king's highway, got so far, and grew 
So witty that ye play'd at ducks and drakes 
With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire. 
Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?' 

'Nay, fool,' said Tristram, 'not in open day.' 
And Dagonet, 'Nay, nor will: I see it and hear. 
It makes a silent music up in heaven, 
And I, and Arthur and the angels hear, 
And then we skip.' 'Lo, fool,' he said, 'ye talk 
Fool's treason: is the King thy brother fool?' 
Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill'd, 
'Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools! 
Conceits himself as God that he can make 
figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk 
Erom burning spurge, honey from hornet-coraljs ; 
And men from beasts — Long live the king of fools!' 

And down the city Dagonet danced away. 
But thro' the slowly-mellowing avenues 
And solitary passes of the wood 
llode Tristram toward Lyonesse and the west. 
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt 
With ruby-circled neck, but evermore 
Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood 
Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye 
Por all that walk'd, or crept, or perch'd, or liew. 
Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, 
Unrufliing waters re-collect the shape 
Of one that in them sees himself, return'd; 
But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, 
Or ev'n a fall'n feather, vanish'd again. 

So on for all that day from lawn to lawn 
Thro' many a league-long bower he rode. At length 
A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs 
Furze-cramm'd, and bracken-rooft, the which himself 
Biiilt for a summer day with Queen Isolt 
Against a shower, dark in the golden grove 
Appearing, sent his fancy back to where 
She lived a moon in that low lodge with him: 
Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish king. 
With six or seven, when Tristram was away. 
And snatch'd her thence; yet dreading worse than shame 
Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word, 
But bode his hour, devising wretchedness. 

And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt 
So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank 
Down on a drift of foliage rand-om-blown ; 



WILLS OF THE KING. 

But could not rest for musing how to smootli 

x\.ud sleek his marriage over to the Queen. , 

Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all 

The tonguesters of the court she had not heard. 

But then what folly had sent him overseas 

After she left him lonely here? a name? 

Was it the name of one in Brittany, 

Isolt, the daughter of the King? 'Isolt 

Of the white hands' they call'd her: the sweet name' 

Allured him first, and then the maid herself, 

Who served him well with those white hands of hers. 

And loved him well, until himself had thought 

He loved her also, wedded easily. 

But left her all as easily, and return'd. • 

The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes 

Had drawn him home — what marvel? then he laid 

His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream'd. 

He seem'd to pace the strand of Brittany 
Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, 
And show'd them both the ruby-chain, and both 
Began to struggle for it, till his Queen 
Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red. 
Then cried the Breton, 'Look, her hand is red! 
These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, 
And melts within her hand — her hand is hot 
With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look. 
Is all as cool and' white as any flower.' 
Follow'd a rush of eagle's wings, and then 
A whimpering of the spirit of the child, 
Because the twain had spoil'd her carcanet. 

He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears 
Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed. 
And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, 
The wide -win g'd sunset of the misty marsh 
Glared on a huge machicolated tower 
That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd 
A roar of riot, as from men secure 
Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease 
Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. 
'Lo there,' said one of Arthur's youth, for there. 
High on a grim dead tree before the tower, 
A goodly brother of the Table Round 
Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield 
Showing a shower of blood in a field noir, 
And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights 
At that dishonour done the gilded spur, 
Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn 
But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode. 
Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn, 
That sent the face of all the marsh aloft 
An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud 
Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heartl, and all, 



TUE LdST TOURNAMENT. 339 

Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm, 

In blood-red armour sallying, liowl'd to the King, 

'The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat! 
Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King 
Who fain had dipt free manhood from the world — 
The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! 
Slain was the brother of my paramour 
By a knight of thine, and T that heard her whine 
And snivel, being eunucli-hearted too, 
Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell, 
And stings itself to everlasting death. 
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought 
And tumbled. Art thou King? — Look to thy life! 

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face 
Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name 
Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. 
And Arthur deign'd not use of word or sword. 
But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from horse 
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, 
Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp 
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, 
Heard in dead night along that table-shore, 
Drops flat, and after the great waters break 
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, 
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud. 
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell 
Head-heavy, while the knights, who watch'd him, roav'd 
And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n: 
There trampled out his face from being known, 
And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves: 
Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang 
Thro' open doors, and swording right and left 
Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl'd 
The tables over and the wines, and slew 
Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells. 
And all the pavement stream'd with massacre : 
Then, yell with yell echoing, they fired the tower, 
Which half that autumn night, like the live Korth, 
Red-pulsing up thro' Alioth and Alcor, 
Made all above it, and a hundred meres 
About it, as the water Moab saw 

Come round by the East, and out beyond them flush'd 
The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea. 

So all the ways were safe from shore to shore. 
But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord. 

Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream 
Fled with a shout, and that low lodge return'd, 
Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs. 
He whistled his good warhorse left to graze 
Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him. 
And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf, 



84rj IDYLLS OF THE KINO 

Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross, 

Stay'd him. T\hy weep yer' 'Lord,' she said, 'my muji 

Hath left me or is dead;' whereon he thouglit — ' 

'What, an she hate me now? I would not this. 

AVhat, an she love me still? I would not that. 

I know not what I woul'd — hut said to her, 

'Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return, 

He find thy favour changed and love thee not' — 

Then pressing day hy day thro' Lyonesse 

Last in a roky hollow, helling, heard 

The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds 

Yelp at liis heart, hut turning, past and gain'd 

Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land, 

A crown of towers. 

Down in a casement sat, 
A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair 
And glossy-throated gVace, Isolt the Queen. 
And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind 
The spiring stone that scaled ahout her tower, 
Flush'd, started, met him at the doors, and there 
Belted his body with her wliite embrace 
Crying aloud, 'Not Mark — not Mark, my soul I 
The footstep flutter 'd me at first: not he: 
Catlike thro' his own castle steals my Mark, 
But warrior-wise thou stridest thro' his halls 
Who hates thee, as I him — ev'n to the death. 
My soul, I felt ray hatred for my Mark 
Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.' 
To whom Sir Tristram smiling, 'I am here. 
Lv-^t be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.' 

And drawing somewhat backward she replied, 
'Can he be wrong'd who is not ev'n his own. 
But save for dread of thee had beaten me, 
Scratch'd, bitten, blinded, marr'd me somehow — Mark' 
What rights are his that dare not strike for them? 
Not lift a hand — not, tho' he found me thus! 
But harken! have ye met him? hence he went 
To-day for three days' hunting — as he said — 
And so returns belike within an hour. 
Mark's way, my soul! — but eat noc thou with Mark, 
Because he hates thee even more than fears ; 
Xor drink : and when thou passest any wood 
Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush 
Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell. 
My God, the measure of iny hate for Mark, 
Is as the measure of my love for thee.' 

So, pluck'd one way by hate and one by love, 
Drain'd of lier force, again she sat, and spake 
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, 
. '0 hunter, and blower of the horn, 
Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, 



THE LAST TOVRNAMENT. U\ 

For, ere I mated with my shambling king, 

Ye twain had fallen out about the bride 

Of one — his name is out of me — the prize, 

If prize she were — (what marvel — she could see) — 

Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks 

To wreck thee villanously. but, Sir Knight, 

What dame or damsel have ye kneel'd to last? 

And Tristram, 'Last to my Queen Paramount. 
Here now to my Queen Paramount of love 
And loveliness — ay, lovelier than when first 
Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonesse, 
Sailing from Ireland.' 

Softly laugh'd Isolt, 
'Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen 
My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said, 
'Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine. 
And thine is more to me* — soft, gracious, kind — 
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips 
Most gracious; but she, haugthty, ev'n to him 
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow 
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen 
Have yielded him her love.' 

To whom Isolt, 
'Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou 
Who brakest thro' the scruple of my bond, 
Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me 
That Guinevere had sinn'd against *the highest, 
And I — misyoked with such a want of man — 
That I could hardly sin against the lowest.' 

He answer'd, '0 my soul, be comforted! 
If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings, 
If here be comfort, and if ours be sin, 
Crown'd warrant had we for the crowning sin 
That made us happy, but how ye greet me — fear 
And fault and doubt — no word of that fond tale — 
Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories 
Of Tristram in that year he was away.' 

And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt, 
'I had forgotten all in my strong joy 
To see thee — yearnings? — ay! for, hour by hour 
Here in the never-ended afternoon, 
sweeter than all memories of thee, 
Deeper than any yearnings after thee 
Seem'd those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas, 
Watch'd from this tower. Isolt of Britain dash'd 
Before Isolt of Britanny on the strand, 
Would that have chill'd her bride-kiss? Wedded her? 
Fought in her father's battles? wounded there? 
The King was all fulfill'd with gratefulness, 



34? IDYLLS OF THE KING, 

And slie, my namesake of the hands, that lieal'd 
Tliy liurt aiid heart with unguent and caress — 
Well — can I wish her any huger wrong 
Than having known thee: her foo hast thou left 
To pine and waste in those sweet memories. 
were I not my Mark's, by whom all men 
Are noble, I should hat^ tliee more than love.' 

And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, 
'Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well. 
Did I love her? the name at least I loved. 
Isolt'r—I fought his battles, for Isolt! 
The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt! 

The name was ruler of the dark Isolt? 

Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek, 
Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God.' 

And Isolt answer'd, *l'ea, and why not I? 
Mine is the larger need, who am no*t meek. 
Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now. 
Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat, 
Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where, 
Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing. 
And once or twice I spake thy name aloud. 
Then fiash'd a levin-brand ;. and near me stood, 
Jn fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend — 
Mark's way to steal behind one in the dark — 
For there was Mark: ,/He has wedded her,'' he said, 
^N'ot said, but hiss'd it: then this crown of towers 
So shook to such a roar of all the sky. 
That here in utter dark I swoon'd aw'ay. 
And woke again in utter dark, and cried, 
1,1 will flee hence and give myself to God" — 
And thou wert lying in thy new leman's arms.' 

Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand, 
'May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray. 
And past desire!' a saying that anger'd her. 
'„May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old. 
And sweet no more to me!-' I need Him now. 
Lor when had Lancelot utter'd aught so gross 
Ev'n to the swineherd's malkin in the mast ? 
The greater man, the gi-eater coiirtesy. 
But thou, thro' ever harrying thy wild beasts — 
Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance 
Becomes thee well — art grown wild beast thyself. 
How darest thou, if lover, push me even 
In fancy from thy side, and set me far 
In the gray distance, half a life away, 
Her to beloved no more? Unsay it, 'unswear! 
Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, 
Broken witli Mark and hate and solitude, 
Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck 
Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. 



THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 343 

Will ye uot lie? not swear, as there ye kueel, 
Aad solemnly as when ye sware to liim, 
The man of men, our King — My God, the power 
Was once in vows when men believed the King! 
They lied not then, who sware, and thro' their*" vows 
The King prevailing made his realm: — I say, 
Swear to me thou wilt love me ev'n when old, 
Gray-haii*d, and past desire, and in despair.' 

Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down, 
'Vows! did ye keep the vow ye made to Mark 
More than 1 mine? Lied, say ye? Xay, but learnt. 
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself — 
My knighthood taught me this — ay, being suapt — 
We run more counter to the soul thereof 
Than had we never sworn. T swear no more, 
I swore to the great King, and am forsworn. 
For once — ev'n to the height — I honour'd him. 
vMan, is he man at all?" methought, when first 
I rode from our rough Lyonesse, and beheld 
That victor of the Pagan throned in hall — 
His hair, a sun that ray'd from off a brow 
Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, 
The golden beard that clothed his lips with light — 
Moreover, that weird legend of his birth, 
With Merlin's mystic babble about his end 
Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool 
Shaped as a dragon; he seem'd to me no man, 
But Michael trampling Satan; so I sware, 
Being amazed : but this went by — The vows ! 
ay — the wholesome madness of an hour — 
They served their use, their time; for every knight 
Believed himself a greater than himself, 
And every follower eyed him as a God; 
Till he, being lifted up beyond himself. 
Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done, 
And so the realm was made ; but then their vows — 
First mainly thro' that sullying of our Queen — 
Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence 
Had Arthur right to bind them to himself? 
Dropt down from heaven? wash'd up from out the deep? 
They fail'd to trace him thro' the flesh and blood 
Of our old Kings: whence then? a doubtful lord 
To bind them by inviolable vows. 
Which flesh and blood perforce would violate: 
For feel this arm of mine — the tide within 
Bed with free chase and heather-scented air^ 
Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure 
As any maiden child? look up my tongue 
From uttering freely what I freely hear? 
Bind me to o"ne? The wide world* laughs at it. 
And wordling of the world am I, and know 
The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour 
Woos hip own end; we are not angels here 



344 [DVLLS OF THE KING. 

Isor shall be: vows — I am woodmau of the woods, 
And hear the garnet-headed yaffiugale 
Mock them : my soul, we love but while we may ; 
And therefore is my love so large for thee, 
Seeing it is not bounded save by love.' 

Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said, 
Good: au I turn'd away my love for thee 
To some one thrice as courteous as thyself — 
Tor courtesy wins woman all as well 
As valour may, but he that closes both 
Is perfect, he is Lancelot — taller indeed, 
Hosier, and comelier, thou — but say I loved ^ 
This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee bacK 
Thine own small saw, ,,^'t love but while we may," 
Well then, what answer?" 

He that while she spake, 

Mindful of w^hat he brought to adorn her with, 
The jewels, had let one linger lightly touch 
The warm white apple of her throat, replied, 
'Press this a little closer, sw^eet, until — 
Come, I am hunger'd and half-anger'd — meat, 
Wine, wine — and I will love thee to the death, 
And out beyond into the dream to come.' 

So then, when both were brought to full accord, 
She rose, and set before him all he wiU'd; 
And after these had comforted the blood 
With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts — 
Xow talking: of their woodland paradise. 
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns: 
Xow mocking at the much ungainliness. 
And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark — 
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: 

•'Ay, ay, ay — the winds that bend the brier! 
A star in' heaven, a star within the mere! 
iy, av, ay — a star was my desire, 
\nd one was far apart, and one was near : 
Ay ay, ay — the winds that bow the grass! 
\nd one was water and one star was fire, 
\nd one will ever shine and one will pass. 
Ay, ay, ay — the winds that move the mere. 

Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram show'd 
Vnd swung the ruby carcanet. She cried, 
'The collar of some Order, which our King 
Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul, 
For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers. 

'Not so, my Queen,* he said, 'but the red fruit 
Grown on a ma?ic oak-tree in mid-heaven,, 
And wan by Tristram as a tourney-prize. 



GUNETEBJE. 

And hither brought hy Tristram for his last 
Love-oSering and peace-offering unto thee.' 

He rose, be turn'd, then. l\inging round her neck. 
Cluspt it, and cried -'Thine Order, my Queen!' 
Eut. while he bow'd to kiss the jewell'd throat, 
Out of tbe dark, just as the lips' had touch'd, 
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek — 
'Mark's way/ said Mark, and clove liim thro' the brain. 

That night came Arthur liome, and while he clirnb'd. 
All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom 
The stairway to the hall, and look'd and saw 
The great Queen's bower was dark, — about his feet 
A voice clung sobbing till he question'd it, 
•T\'hat art thour' and the voice about his feet 
Sent up an answer, sobbing, T am thy fool, 
And I shall never make th'ee smile as:ain.' 



GUINEVERE. 

QuzEX GriNEVEEE had lied the court, and sat 
There in the holy house at Almesbury 
"Weeping, none w'ith her save a little 'maid, 
A novice, one low light betwixt them burn'd 
Elurr'd by the creeping mist, for" all abroad. 
Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, - 
The white mist, like a face-cloth the face, 
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. 

Tor hither had she fled, her cause of flight 
Sir Modred: he that like a subtle beast 
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, 
Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this ' 
He ciiill'd the popular praises of the King 
"With silent smiles of slow disparagement ■" 
And tamper'd with the Lords of the White Horse, 
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought 
To make disruption in the Table Round 
Of Ai'thur, and to splinter it into feuds 
Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims 
"^'ere sharpen"d by strong hate for Lancelot. 

Tor thus it chanced one morn when all the court. 
Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd t]ie may, 
Had been, their wont, a-maying and return'd, 
That Modred still in green, 'all ear and eye, 
Climb'd to the high top of the garden-wall 
To spy some secret scandal if he might, 
And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best 
Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court 
The wiliest and the worst; and more than this 
He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by 



3*6 IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

Spied wliere he conch'd and as tlie gardener's hand 

Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, 

So from the high wall and the flowering grove 

Of grasses Lancelot pluck'd him hy the lieel, 

And cast him as a worm upon the way; 

But when he knew the Prince tlio' marr'd with dust, 

He, reverencing king's hlood in a bad man, 

Made such excuses as he might, and these 

Full knightly without scorn; for in those days 

No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; 

But, if a man were hald or hunch'd, in him 

By those whom God had made fuU-limh'd and tall, 

Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect. 

And he was answer'd softly hy the King 

And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp 

To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice 

Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went: 

But, ever after, the small violence done 

Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 

As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 

A little bitter pool about a stone 

On the bare coast. 

But when Sir Lancelot told 
This matter to the Queen, at first she laugh'd 
Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall. 
Then shudder'd, as the village wife who cries 
,/I shudder, some one steps across my grave;" 
Then laugh'd again, but faintlier, for indeed 
She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast. 
Would track her guilt until he found, and hers 
Would be for evermore a name of scorn. 
Henceforward rarely could she front in Hall, 
Or elsewliere, Modred's narrow foxy face. 
Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye: 
Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul. 
To help it from the death that cannot die, 
And save it even in extremes, began 
To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, 
Beside the placid breathings of the King, 
In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
Before her, or a vague spiritual fear — 
Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors. 
Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, 
That keeps the rust of murder on the walls — 
Held her awake: or if she slept, she dream'd 
An awful dream; for then she seem'd to stand 
One some vast plain before a setting sun, 
And from the sun there swiftly made at her 
A ghastly somcthinff, and its shadow flew 
Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turnM — 
When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet, 
And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it 
Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. 



G VINE FERE. 347 

And all this trouble did not pass but grew- 

Till ev'n the clear face of the guileless King, 

And trustful courtesies of household life, 

Became her bane: and at the last she said, 

,■,0 Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land, 

For if thou tarry we shall meet again. 

And if we meet again, some evil chance 

Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze 

Before the people, and our lord the King.'' 

iind Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd. 

And still they met and met. xigain she said, 

,,0 Lancelot, 'if thou love me get thee hence." 

And then they were agreed upon a night 

(When the good King "should not be there) to meet 

And part for ever. Passion-pale they met 

And greeted; hands in hands, and eye to eye, 

Low on the border of her couch they sat 

Stammering and staring: it was their last ]iour« 

A madness of farewells. And Modred brouglit 

His creatures to the basement of the tower 

For testimony; and crying with full voice 

./Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last," aroused 

Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike 

Leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong, and he fell 

Stunn'd, and his creatures took and bare him off 

And all was still: then she, „the end is come 

And I am shamed for ever," and he said 

,,Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise. 

And fly to my strong castle overseas: 

There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, 

There hold thee with my life against the world." 

She answer'd ,/Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so': 

Xay friend, for we have taken our farewells. 

Would God, that thou could'st hide me from myself. 

Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou 

Unwedded: yet rise now, and let us fly, 

For I will draw me into sanctuary, 

And bide my doom." So Lancelot got her horse, 

Set her thereon, and mounted on his own, 

And then they rode to the divided way. 

There kiss'd, and parted weeping: for he past, 

Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, 

Back to his landj; but she to Almesbury 

Fled all night lono by glimmering waste and weald, 

And heard "the Spirits of the waste and weald 

Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moau: 

And in herself she moan'd ^too late, too late!" 

Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, 

A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, 

Croak'd and she thought ,/he spies a field of death. 

For now the Heathen of the ^sorthern Sea, 

Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court, 

Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land." 



g^g IDVLLS OF THE KING. 

And when she came to Almesbury slie spake 
There to the nuus, and said, „mme enemies 
Pursue me, but, peaceful Sisterhood, 
Receive and yield me sanctuary, nor ask 
Her name, to whom ye yield it, till her time 
To tell you:" and her beauty, grace and power. 
Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared 
To ask it. 

So the stately Queen abode 
For many a week, unknown, among the nuns ; 
iS^r with them mix'd, nor told her name, nor sought 
Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shritt 
But communed only with the little maid, 
Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness 
Which often lured her from herself; but now, 
This nio-ht a rumour wildly blown about 
Came, that Sir Modred had usurped ^Ije /-ealm, 
\nd leagued him with the heathen, while the King 
Was waging war on Lancelot: then she thought, 
„With what a hate the people and the King 
Must hate me," and bow'd down upon her hands 
Silent, until the little maid, who brook d 
:No silence, brake it, uttering „late! so Ife! 
What hour, I wonder, now? and when she drew 
^-0 answer, by and by began to hum 
An air the nuns had taught her: "^te so late 
Which when she heard, the Queen look'd up, and sauL 
„0 maiden, if indeed ye list to smg. 
Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep. 
Whereat full willingly sang the little maid. 

,Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! 
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still 
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. 

„\o light had we: for that we do repent; 
Vnd learning this, the bridegroom will relent. 
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. 

,So li-ht- so late! and dark and chill the night! 
let us^in, that we may find the light. 
Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now. 

„Have we not heard the bridegroom it so sweet 
let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet ! 
^'0, no, too late! ye cannot enter now." 

So saner the novice, while full passionately. 
Her head upon her hands, remembering 
Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen. 
Then said the little novice prattling to her. 



GUINEVERE. 353 

,0 pray you, noble lady, weep no more; 
But let my words, the words of one so small , 
Who knowing nothing knows hut to obey, 
And if I do not there is penance given — 
Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow 
i'rom evil done; right sure am I of that, 
Who see your tender grace and stateliness. 
But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King's, 
And weighing find them less; for gone is he 
To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there, 
Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen ; 
And Modred whom he left in charge of all, 
The traitor — Ah sweet lady, the King's grief 
I'or his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, 
Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. 
Tor me, I thank the saints, I am not great. 
For if there ever come a grief to me 
I cry my cry in silence, and have done : 
None knows it, and my tears have brought me good 
But even were the griefs of little ones 
As great as those of great ones, yet this grief 
Is added to the griefs the great must bear. 
That howsoever much they may desire 
Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud : 
As even here they talk at Almesbury 
About the good King and his wicked Queen, 
And were I such a King with such a Queen, 
\Yell might I wish to veil her wickedness, 
But were I such a King, it could not be.' 

Then to her own sad heart mutter'd the Queen. 
■,Will the child kill me with her innocent talk'r" 
But openly she answer'd ,/must not I, 
If this false traitor have displaced his lord, 
Grieve with the common grief of all the realm ':'' 

/Yea," said the maid, vthis is all woman's grief, 
That she is woman, whose disloyal life 
Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round 
Which, good King Arthur founded, years ago, 
With signs and miracles and wonders, there 
At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.'' 

Then thought the Queen within herself again: 
./Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?" 
But openly she spake and said to her; 
,,0 little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, 
What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, 
Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs 
And simple miracles of thy nunnery r'- 

To whom the little novice garrulously. 
./Yea but I know: the land was full of signs 
And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. 



350 . IDFLLS OF TUE KING. 

So said my father, and himself was knight 

Of the great Table — at the founding of it ; 

And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said 

That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain 

After the sunset, down the coast, he heard 

Strange music, "and he paused and turning — there, 

All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, 

Each with a beacon-star upon his head, 

And with a wild sea-light about his feet, 

He saw them — headland after headland flame 

Tar on into the rich heart of the west : 

And in the light the white mermaiden swam. 

And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea, 

And sent a deep sea-voice thro' all the land, 

To which the little elves of chasm and cleft 

Made answer, sounding like a distant horn. 

So said my father — yea, and furthermore, 

Next morning, while he past the dim -lit woods, 

Hircself beheld three spirits mad with joy 

Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, 

That shook beneath them, as the 'thistle sliakes 

When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed: 

And still at evenings on before his horse 

The flickering fairy-circle wheel'd and broke 

Flying, and link'd* again, and wheel'd and broke 

Hying, for all the land was full of life. 

And when at last he came to Camelot, 

A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-haud 

Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall; 

And in the hall itself was such a feast 

As never man had dream'd; for every knight 

Had whatsoever meat he long'd for served' 

By hands unseen; and even as he said 

Down in the cellars merry bloated things 

Shoulder'd the spigot, straddling on the butts 

While the wine ran : so glad were spirits and men 

Before the coming of the sinful Queen," 

Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly: 
„Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all, 
Spirits and men: could none of them foresee, 
N'ot even thy wise father with his signs 
And wonders, what has fall'n upon the realm?" 

To whom the novice garrulously again. 
,,Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said, 
i'uU many a noble war-song had he sung, 
Ev'n in the presence of an enemy's fleet, 
Between the steep cliff and the coming wav 
And many a mystic lay of life and death 
Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, 
When round him bent the' spirits of the hills 
With all their dewy hair blown back like flame; 
So said my father — and that night the hard 



GVINEFEEE, 351 

Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang tlie King 

As well-nigh more than man, and raii'd at those 

Who call'd him the false son of Gorlois: 

lor there was no man knew from whence he came; 

But after tempest, when the long wave broke 

All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, 

There came a day as still as heaven, and then 

They found a naked child upon the sands 

Of dark Tintagil l^y the Cornish sea ; 

And that was Arthur; and they forster'd him 

Till he by miracle was approven king: 

And that his grave should be a mysfery 

From all men, like his birth- and 'could he find 

k woman in her womanhood as great 

As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, 

The twain together well might change the world. 

But even in the middle of his song " 

He falter'd, and -his hand fell from the harp, 

And pale he turn'd, and reel'd and would liave fall'n, 

But that they stay'd him up; nor would he tell 

His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw 

This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?'' 

Then thought the Queen „lo! they have set her on, 
Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns. 
To play upon me,'' and bow'd her head nor spake. 
Whereat the novice crying, with clasp'd hands, 
Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, 
Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue 
Full often, ,/and, sweet lady, if 1 seem 
To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, 
Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales 
Which my good father told, check me too: 
Nor let me shame my father's memory, one 
Of noblest manners, tho' himself would say 
Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died,* 
Kill'd in a tilt, come next, five summers back, 
And left me; but of others who remain, 
And of the two first-famed for courtesy — 
And pray you check me if I ask amiss — 
But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved 
Among them, Lancelot or our lord tlie King?' 

Then the pale Queen look'd up and answer'd her 
,,Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, 
Was gracious to all ladies, and tlie same 
In open battle or the tilting-field 
Forbore his own advantage, and the King 
In open battle or tlie tilting-field 
Forbore his own advantage, and these two 
Were the most nobly-mannered men of all; 
For manners are not idle, 1)ut the fruit 
Of loyal nature, and of noble rnind.'' 



355 TT)TLLS OF THE KJKG. 

„Yea,'' suid tlie iiiaid, ,/l)e iiiiuniers such fair friut 
Tlien Lancelot's needs must be a tliousaiuT-fold 
Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, 
The most disloyal friend in all the world/' 

To which a mournful answer made de Queen. 
,/0 closed about by narrowing nunnery-w'alls, 
\A'hat knowest thou of the world, and all its lights 
And shadows, all the w^ealth and all the woe'r 
If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, 
Were for one hour less noble than himself, 
Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, 
And weep for her, who drew him to his doom.'- 

„Yea," said the little novice, /,I pray for both: 
But I should all as soon believe that his. 
Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's, 
As 1 could think, sweet Lady, yours would be 
Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen'' 

So she, like manyanother babbler, hurt 
Whom she would soothe, and harm'd where she would heal ; 
For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat 
llred all the pale face of the Queen, who cried, 
,/Such as thou art be never maiden more 
ior ever! thou their tool, set on to plague 
And play upon, and harry me, petty spy 
And traitress." When that storm of anger l)rake 
From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose. 
White as her veil, and stood before the Queen 
As tremulously as foam upon the beach 
Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly, 
And when the Queen had added ,/get thee hence' 
Fled frighted. Then that other Itit alone 
Sigh'd, and began to gather heart again, 
Saying in herself „the simple, fearful child 
Meant nothing, but my own too fearful guilt 
Simpler than any child, betrays itself. 
But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 
Isoi ev'n in inmost thought to think again 
The sins that made the past so pleasant to us: 
And I have sworn never to see him more, 
To see him more." 

And ev^n in saying this, 
Her memory from old habit of the mind^ 
Went slipping back upon the golden days 
In which she saw him first, w^hen Lancelot came, 
Keputed the best knight and goodliest man, 
Ambassador, to lead her to his lord 
Arthur, and led lier forth, and far ahead 
Of his and her retinue moving, they, 
Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love 
And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time 



GUWEVERE. 353 

'Was maytime, and as yet no^ 'ii was dream'd,) 
Rode under groves that look\l u paradise 
■^^Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth 
That seem'd the heavens nphreaking thro' the earth, 
And on from to hill, and every day 
Beheld at noon in some delicious dale 
The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised 
Tor brief repast or afternoon repose 
By couriers gone before; and on again, 
Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw 
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship, 
That crown'd the state pavilion of the King, 
Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well. 

But when the Queen immersed in such a trance, 
And moving thro' the past unconsciously. 
Came to that point where first she saw the King 
Ride toward her from the city, sigh'd to find 
Her journey done, glanced at" him" thought him cold, 
High, self-contain'd, and passionless, not like him, 
„Not like my Lancelot" — while she brooded thus 
And grew half guilty in her thoughts again, 
There rode an armed warrior to the doors. 
A murmuring whisper thro' the nunnery ran, 
Then on a sudf'en a cry, ,/the Kin?." She sat 
Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armed feet 
Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors 
Rang coming, prone from ofl" her seat she fell, 
And grovell'd with her faee against the floor : 
There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair 
She made her face a darkness from the King: 
And in the darkness heard his armed feet 
Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice, 
Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's 
Denouncing judgment, but tho' changed the King's. 

„Liest thou here so low, the child of one 
I honour'd, happy, dead before thy shame? 
"Well is it that no child is born of thee. 
The children born of thee are sword and fire, 
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, 
The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts 
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea. 
Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, ray right arm, 
The mightiest of my knights, abode with me. 
Have everywhere about this land of Christ 
In twelve great battles ruining overthrown. 
And knowest thou now from whence I came — from him, 
Trom waging bitter war with him: and he, 
That did "not shun to smite me in worse way. 
Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left. 
He spared to lift his hand against the King 
Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain; 
And many more, and all his kith and kin 

12 



354 IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

Clave to him, and abode in his own land. 

And many more when Modred raised revolt, 

Forpretful of their troth and fealty, clave 

To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. 

And of this remnant will I leave a part. 

True men who love me still, for whom I live. 

To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, 

Lest but a hair of this low head be harm'd. 

Fear not: thou shalt be guarded till my death. 

Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies 

Have err'd not, that I march to meet my doom. 

Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me, 

That I the King should greatly care to live; 

For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life. 

Bear with me for the last time while I show, 

Ev'n for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinn'd. 

For when the Roman left us, and their law 

Eelax'd its hold upon us, and the ways 

Were fill'd with rapine, here and there a deed 

Of prowess done redress'd a random wrong. 

But I was first of all the kings who drew" 

The knighthood-errant of this realm and all 

The realms together under me. their Head, 

In that fair order of my Table Bound, 

A glorious company, the flower of men, 

To" serve as model for the mighty world. 

And be the fair beginning of a time. 

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 

To reverence the King, as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her. 

And worship her by years of noble deeds, 

Until they won her, for indeed 1 knew 

Of no more subtle master under heaven 

Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 

Not only to keep down the base in man, 

But teach high thought, and amiable words 

And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 

And love of truth, and all that makes a man. 

And all this throve until I wedded thee! 

Believing, 'lo mine helpmate, one to feel 

My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.' 

Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot; 

Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt; 

Then others, following these my mightiest knights, 

And drawing foul ensample from fair names; 

Sinn'd also, till the loathsome opposite 

Of all my heart had destined did obtain; 

And all thro' thee! so that this life of mine 

I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong. 



GUINEVERE. 

Not greatly care to lose; but ratlier tliiuk 

How sad it were for Arthur, should he live, 

To sit once more within his lonely hall, 

And miss the wonted number of my knights, 

And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds 

As in the golden days before thy sin, 

I'or which of us, who might be left, could speak 

Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at theer 

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk 

Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, 

And I should evermore be vext with thee 

In hanging robe or vacant ornament, 

Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. 

For think not, tho' thou would'st not love thy lord, 

Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. 

I am not made of so slight elements. 

Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame. 

I hold that man the worst of public foes 

Who either for his own or children's sake, 

To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife 

Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house : 

For being thro' his cowardice allow'd 

Her station, taken everywhere for pure, 

She like a new disease, unknown to men. 

Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, 

Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps 

The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse 

With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young. 

Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns! 

Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart 

Than thou reseated in thy place of light. 

The mockery of my people, and their bane." 

He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch 
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet. 
Far off a solitary trumpet blew. 
Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh'd 
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again. 

„Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, 
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, 
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die 
To see thee, laying there thy golden head, 
My pride in happier summers, at my feet. 
The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law. 
The doom of treason and the flaming death, 
(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past 
The pang — which while I weigh'd thy heart with one 
Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee, 
Made my tears burn — also past, in part. 
And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I, 
Lo! I forgive tliee, as Eternal God 
Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest. 
But how to take last leave of all I loved? 



356 IDriLS OF THl KING. 

golden hair, with which I used to play 
Not knowing! imperial-moulded form," 
And beauty such as never woman wore, 
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee — 

1 cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine. 
But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's. 
1 cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh, 

And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd: and mine own flesh. 
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries 
'I loathe thee :' yet not less, Guinevere, 
For I was ever virgin save for thee, 
My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life 
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. 
Let no man di-eam but that I love thee still. 
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul. 
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, 
Hereafter in that world where all are pure 
We two may meet before high God, and thou 
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know 
I am thine husband — not a smaller soul, 
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that. 
I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. 
Thro' the thick night 1 hear the trumpet blow: 
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts 
Far down to that great battle in the west, 
^ Where I must strike atjaiiist the man they call 

My sister's son — no kin of mine, who leagues 
With lords of the White-Horse, heathen, aud knights — 
Traitors — and strike him dead, and meet myself 
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. 
And thou remaining here wilt' learn the event; 
But hither shall 1 never come again, 
Never lie by thy side, see thee no more, 
Farewell!'' 

And while she grovell'd at his feet, 
She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck, 
And in the darkuess o'er her fallen head, 
Perceived the waving of liis bauds that blest. 

Tlien listening till those armed steps were gone, 
Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish fuund 
The casement : „peradventure'' so she thought, 
„lf 1 might see liis face, and not be seen. " 
And lo, he sat on horseback at the door! 
And near him the sad nuns witli each a light. 
Stood, and he guve them charge about the Queen, 
To guard aud foster her for evermore. 
And while lie spake to these liis helm was lower'd. 
To whicli for crest the golden dragon clung 
Of Britain ; so she did not see tlie" face, 
Whicli then was as an angel's, but slie saw. 
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, 
The Dragon of the great Pendragousliip 



GlJlNKn-KF. 

Bluze, making all tlie m'glit a stream of tire. 
And even tlien he turuM; and more and more 
The moony vapour rolling; round tlie King:, 
Who seem*d the phantom of a Giant in it, 
Enwouiid l)im fold hy fold, and made him gray 
And grayer, till himself became as mist 
Before lier, moving ghostlike to his doom. 

Tlien she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud 
„0 Arthur!" there her voice brake suddenly, 
Then — as a stream that spouting from a clilf 
Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base 
Re-makes itself and flashes down the vale — 
- Went on in passionate utterance. 

„Gone — my lord! 
Gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain ! 
And lie forgave me, and I could not speak. 
"Farewell? 1 should have answerd his farewell, 
His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, 
My own true lord! liow dare I call him mine? 
The shadow of anotlier cleaves to me. 
And makes me one pollution: he, the King, 
Call'd me polluted; shall I kill myself? 
What help in that? I cannot kill my sin. 
If soul be soul ; nor can 1 kill my shame ;. 
jVo, nor by living can I live it down. 
The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, 
The months will add themselves and make the years, 
The years will roll into the centuries, 
And mine will ever be a name of scorn. 
I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. 
Let the world be; that is but of the world. 
What else? what hope? I think there was a hope, 
Except he mock'd me when he spoke of hope; 
His hope he call'd it; but he never mocks. 
For mockery is the fume of little hearts. 
xind blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
My wickedness to liim, and left me hope 
That in mine own heart I can live down sin 
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens 
Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord. 
Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint 
Among his warring senses, to thy knights — 
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took 
Full easily all impressions from below. 
Would not look up, or half-despised the height 
To which I would not or I could not climb — 
I thought I could not breathe in that tine air 
That pure severity of perfect light — 
I wanted warmth and colour which I fi)iind 
In Lancelot — now I see thee what thou art. 
Thou art the highest and most human too, 
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Is there none 



258 IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

Will tell the King I love him tho' so lateV 
Now — ere he goes to the great Battle? none: 
Myself must tell him in that purer life, 
But now it were too daring. Ah my God, 
What might I not have made of thy fair world, 
Had I but loved thy highest creature here? 
It was my duty to have loved the highest: 
It surely was my profit had I known: 
It would have been my pleasure had I seen,-- 
We needs mu?t love the highest when we sec it, 
IS'ot Lancelot, nor another." 

Here her hand 
Grasp'd, made her vail ner eyes: she look'd and saw 
The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her 
,/Yea, little maid, for am 7 not forgiven?" 
Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns 
All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed 
Within her, and she wept with^these and said. 

vYe know me then, that wicked one, who broke 
The vast design and purpose of the king, 

shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, 
Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.' 

1 must not scorn myself: he loves me still. 
Let no one dream but that he loves me still. 
So let me, if you do not shudder at me 

iS'or shun to call me sister, dwell with you; 

Wear black and white, and be a nun like you; 

Feast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts: 

Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys. 

But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites ; 

Pray and be pray'd for: lie before your shrines; 

Do each low office of your holy house; 

Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole 

To poor sick people, richer in his eyes 

Wlio ransom'd us, and haler too than I ; 

And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own 

And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer 

The sombre close of that voluptuous day, 

Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King." 

She said: they took her to themselves; and she 
Still hoping, fearing is it yet too late? 
Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. 
Then slie, for her good deeds and her pure life, 
And for the power of ministration in her, 
And likewise for the high rank she had borne. 
Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess lived 
lor three brief years, and there, an Abbess past 
To where beyond these voices there is peace. 



THE PJSSIA^G OF .'irrHUE. 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 



359 



That story which the bold Sir Bedi- 

(vere, 
First made and latest left of all the 

(knights. 
Told, when the man was no more than 

(a voice 
In the white winter of his age, to those 
Whith whom he dwelt, new faces, other 

(minds. 

Before that last weird battle in the 

(west 
. There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain 

(kill'd 
In ^Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain 

(blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Went shrilling „Hollow, hollow all de- 

(light! 
Hail, king! to-morrow thou shalt pass 

(away. 
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that 

(change 
Their season in the night and wail their 

(way 
From cloud to cloud, down thejlong wind 

(the dream 
Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim 

(cries 
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, 
xis of some lonely city sack'd by night, 
When all is lost, and wife and child with 

(wail 
V Pass to new lords ; and Arthur' woke and 
f (call'd, 

,Who spake ? A dream. light upon the 

(wind. 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these 

(dim cries 
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste 

(and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with 

(me?" 

1 This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and 

! (spake : 

„0 me, my king, let pass whatever will, 
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the 

', (field; 



But in their stead thy name and glory 

(cling 

To all high places like a golden cloud 
For ever: but as yet thou shall not pass. 
Light was Gawain in life, and light in 

(death 
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man ; 
And care not thou for dreams from him, 

(but rise — 
I hear the steps of Modred in the west. 
And with him many of thy people and 

(knights 
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but 

(grosser grow 
Than heathen, spitting at their vows and 

(thee. 
Right well in heart they know thee for 

(the king. 
Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 

Than spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- 

(vere : 
„Far other is this battle in the west 
Whereto we move, than when we strove 

(in youth. 
And thrust the heathen from the Roman 

(wall, 
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom 

(is mine 
To war against my people and my knights 
The king who fights his peonle fights him- 

(self. 
And they my knights, who loved me once, 

(the stroke 
That strikes them dead is as my death 

(to me. 
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since 

(I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hatli folded in the passes of the world." 

Then rose the king and moved his host 

(by night, 
And ever pusli'd Sir Modred, league by 

(league, 
Back to the sunset bound ofLyonesse — 
A. land of old upheaven from the abyss 
By fire, to sink into the abyss again; 
Where fragments of forgotten peoples 

(dwelt, 
And the long mountains ended in a coast 
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 



3G0 



ID ILLS OF THE KING. 



Tliere tlie pursuer could pursue no more, 
And he that fled no furtlier fly the king ; 
And there, that day when the great light 

(of heaven 
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 
On the waste sand by the waste sea they 

(closed. 
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 
Like this ast, dim, weird battle of the west. 
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea : 
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed 

(it, drew 
Down with his blood, till all his heart 

(was cold. 
With formless fear; and ev'n on Arthur fell 
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought, 
For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 
And friend slew friend not knowing whom 

(he slew: 
And some had visions out of golden youth, 
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 
Look in upon the battle; and in the mist 
Was many a noble deed, many a base, 
xind chance and craft and strength in 

(single fights, 
And ever and anon with host to host 
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the 

(hard mail hewn. 
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, 

(the crash 
Of battleaxes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks 
After the Christ, of those who falling down 
Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist; 
And shouts of heathen ant^ the traitor 

(knights, 
Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blas- 

(phemies, 
Sweat, writhing, anguish, labouring of 

(the lungs 
In that close mist, and crying for the light. 
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 
Or deathlike swoon, tlius over all that shore, 
Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day 
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
A bitter wind, clear from the Isorth, and 

(blew 
The mist aside, and with that wind thetide 
Rose, and the pale king glanced across 

(the field 
Of battle: but no man was moving there; 



Nor any cry of Christian hoard therefm, 
Nor yet of heatlieu; only the wan wave 
Brake in ;imong dead faces, to and fro 
Swaying the helpless hands, and up and 

(down 
Tumbling the hollow helmets, of the fallen, 
And shiver'd brands that once had fought 

(with Rome, 
And rolling far along the gloomy shores 
The voice of days of old and days to bef 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the King: 

„Hearest thou this great voice that 

(shakes the world, 
And wastes the narrow realm whereon 

(we move. 
And beats upon the faces of the dead, 
My dead, as tho' they had not died for 

"(me? — 
Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 
Confusion, till I know not what I am, 
Xor whence I am, uor whether I be king. 
Behold, I seem but king among the dead." 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: „My 

(King, 
King everywhere! and so the dead have 

(kings. 
There also will I worship thee as king. 
Yet still thy life is whole, and still I Hve 
Who love thee; but who hates thee, he 

(that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine 

(house." 

Then spake the King : „My house hath 

(been my doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house 
Who hath l)ut dwelt beneath one roof 

(with me. 
My house are rather they who sware my 

(vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd 

(me king. 
And well for thee ; saying in my dark hour, 
When all the purportof my throne hath fail* 
That quick or dead thou boldest me forking. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry; 
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the king 
Made at the man: then Modred smote 

(his liege 



THE FJSSING OF JRTHUR. 



861 



Hard on that helm which many a heathen 

(sword 
Had beaten thin; while xirthur at one bowl, 
Strikino: tlie last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 
Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
UntirKing Arthur's Table, man by man, 
Had fall'n in Lyonesse about their lord, 
King Arthur. Then, because his wound 

(was deep, 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
That stood on a dark strait of barren laud : 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
„The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world' holds record. Such 

(a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think 

(that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly 

(deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more: but let what will be, be. 
I am soo deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride: for thou remember- 

(est how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
Holding the sword and how 1 rovv'd across 
And took it, and have worn it, like a king; 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertinie, this also shall be known: 
But now delay not: take Excalibur, 
And fling him far into the middle mere: 
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring 

(me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
„It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
A little thing may harm a wounded man; 
Yet I thy liest will all perform at full, 



Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee 
(word.' 

So saying, from theruin'dslirineliestept. 
And in the moon atliwart the place uf tombs, 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind 

(sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, 

(stepping down 
By zig-zag patlis, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran 

(forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the 

(hilt: 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond 

(sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewelry, He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, . 
This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
There in the many -knotted waterflags, 
That whistled stiff and dry about the 

(marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded King . 

./Then spake king Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
„Hast thou perform'd my mission which 

(I gave? 
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast 

(heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
„I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and 

(pale: 
„Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy 

(name. 
Not rendering trtie answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
Eor surer sign had folio w'd, either liand, 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bade tliee, watch, and lightly bring me 

(word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 



362 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he 

(smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud: 

„And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many 

(men. 
What good should follow this, if this were 

(done ? 
What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he 

(does. 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty 

(kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by \he lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the 

(deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
So might some old man speak in the- 

(aftertime 
Te all the people, winning revereiice. 
But now much honour and much fame 

(were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second lime. 
And so strode back slow to the wounded 

(King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing 
(heavily: 
,,What is it thou hast seen? or what 
(hast heard ?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
„I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much 

(in wrath 
„Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 
Authority 'forgets a dying king. 
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 



That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou 

(art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights 
In whom should meet the offices of all. 
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious 

(hilt; 
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for ar man may fail in duty twice. 
And the third tim.e may prosper, get thee 

(hence : 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And leaping down the ridges lightly, plun 

(ged 
ximong the bulrush-beds, and clutched 

(the sword. 
And strongly wheePd and threw it. The 

(great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the 

(moon. 
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd 

(in an arch. 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
So fiash'd and fell the brand Excalibur : 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothedin white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
And caught him by the hilt, and bran- 

(dish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the 

(mere. 
And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing 

(thicker breath: 
'Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, 

(or seen?' 

,, And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
„Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the 

(gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheel- 

(ing hini; 
But when I look'd again, behold »u arm. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- 

(derful, 



TEE PJSSINS OF JBTRVB. 



363 



That caught him by the hilt, and bran- 

(dish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the 

(mere." 

And answer madeKing Arthur, breath- 

(ing hard: 
^,My end draws nigh; *tis time that I 

(were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my 

(weight, 
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
And would have spoken, but he found 

(not words; 
Then took with care, and kneeling on 

(one knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid 

(hands. 
And risingbore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted 

(hard. 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd 

(the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear 

,, Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge 

(to ridge, 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as 

(he walk'd, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like 

(a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness m the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff chang'd round him, 

(as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed 

(heels — 
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky 
(barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stem, 



Beneath them; and descending they were 

(ware 
That all the decks'were dense with state- 

(ly forms, 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — 

(by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold: and 

(from them rose 
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, and agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one 

(comes, 
Or hath come, since the making of the 

(world: 

Then murmur'd Arthur, „Place me in 

(the barge;" 
So to the barge they came. There those 

(three Queens 
Put forth their h^.nds, and took the King, 

(and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and 

(chafed his hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining: 

(loud, 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood: for all his face 

(was white 
And colourless, andlikethe withered moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing 

(east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd 

(with drops 
Of onset; and the light and lust rous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were parch'd 

(with dust; 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly growth that 

(fringed his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in 

(rest. 
From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: 
„A! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
Feor now I see the true old times are dead, 



364 



FDTLLS OF 



When every morning brought a noble 

(chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble 

(knight* 
Such times have been not since the light 

(that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole Round Table is dis- 

(solved 
Which was an image of the mighty world; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the 

(years. 
Among new men, strange faces, other 

(minds." 

And slowly answered Arthur from the 

(barge : 
The old order changeth, yielding place to 

(new, 
And Gold fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the 

(world. 
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
1 have lived my life, and that which I 

(have done 
MayHe within himself make pure, but thou, 
I thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought 

(by prayer 
Than tfiis' world dreams of. Wherefore, 

(let thy voice 
Eise like a fountain for me nieht and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of 

(prayer 
Both 'for themselves and those who call 

(them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
JBound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 
To the island-valley of Avilion: 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. 
JN'or ever wind blows loudly; but "it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard- 

(lawns 
And bowery hollow^ crown'd with sum- 
Cm er sea, 
■ Whei ? I will heal me of my grievous wound. " 



J 



TEE KING. 

So said he, and the barge with oar In c 

(sail \ 

Moved from the brink, like some fuUi 

(breasted swan \ 

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death'i 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes 

(the flood 
With swarthy webs. Lons: stood Sir Be- 

(divere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the ver^e 

(of dawn, " ^ 

And on the mere the wailing died awayl 

At length he groan'd, and turning slowl 

(clomb 
The last hard footstep of that crag; « 
Thence mark'd the black hull moving 

(yet, and cried, 
'■He passes to be king among the dead, 
And after healing of his grievous wound 
He comes again: but — if he come no 

(more — 
me, be yon dark Queens in yon black 

(boat, 
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three where 

(at we gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with 

(living light, 
They stood before his throne in silence 

(friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at hia 

(need?" ^ 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there 

(came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, " 
Like the last echo born of a great cry. 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one vo'icr 
Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved aboii:. 

(and clomb 
E'en to the highest he could climb, and saw : 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand; 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare 

(the king, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far" off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
And the new sun rose bringing tlie'neW 

(year. 



